Ekstrom: Four recommendations for the Vikings' offseason

In his debut story at Purple Insider, Sam Ekstrom offers his two cents on four areas the Vikings should address this offseason.

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By Sam Ekstrom

If the Vikings are going to continue their trend of reaching the playoffs in odd-numbered years, they’ll need to use a creative offseason approach to improve the roster around a depressed salary cap.

That means making the most of limited funds during free agency, finding contributors in the draft without a second-round pick and pulling the right strings to extract the most from players currently on the roster.

Four months from now, assuming offseason practices take place, the Vikings will likely be breaking from mandatory mini-camp and heading into their pre-training camp lull. Between now and then, they’ll need to bolster their 90-man roster using all the possible avenues, beginning with free agency in just four weeks.

Here are four offseason recommendations for the Vikings, ranging from free agency strategy to draft approach to OTAs:

Don’t spend your salary cap all at once

Let’s be honest, it’s going to be tough for the Vikings to have a lot of free agency wiggle room, even if all their expensive veterans cooperate at the negotiating table. Assuming a $180 million salary cap, the Vikings could release Kyle Rudolph, Shamar Stephen and Britton Colquitt, then knock $5 million each off Anthony Barr, Riley Reiff and Danielle Hunter’s cap hits via restructure (or in Hunter’s case, a raise) and still only have between $12-15 million available to spend.

Unless the Vikings pull off a Kirk Cousins blockbuster without absorbing a quarterback-size cap hit in return, they’re probably stuck with those parameters. Sure, they could simply cut Barr, but he’s got $7.8 million in dead money, so they wouldn’t be saving much more than a restructure provides. They could release Reiff, but that opens up a can of worms with your tackle depth. Better to rework his deal, knock his cap number down and see if he can duplicate his best season as a Viking.

A year ago the Vikings had limited funds and chose to give most of them to Michael Pierce. His eventual opt-out in late July cleared some cap space but they elected to pour most of that space into re-signing Dan Bailey and the Yannick Ngakoue trade.

There should be a happy medium between burning the money on one player and making smart moves to acquire valued veterans. For example, here’s who the Vikings could’ve acquired last season instead of Pierce at $9 million per year: CB Darqueze Dennard ($1.01 million), S Tavon Wilson ($1.05 million), DT Shelby Harris ($3.25 million), DL Derek Wolfe ($3 million) and WR Nelson Agholor ($1.0475 million). Even if two or three of those signings go bust, they’re offering more value than Pierce or Ngakoue would have if they had worked out.

With more teams in cap purgatory than ever before in 2021, overpriced veterans will be available in unprecedented numbers. I’m not saying the Vikings should go dumpster diving in free agency; rather, bargain-hunt for quality depth at corner, wide receiver and defensive line. That strategy would have served them better in 2020.

Commit to drafting a guard… higher than usual

Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings

The last time the Vikings had the same two guards starting the majority of games in back-to-back seasons, they had Charlie Johnson and Brandon Fusco protecting Christian Ponder back in 2012-13. Between a series of free agent whiffs and draft busts, the guard position has remained in flux as the Vikings continue to toy, often unsuccessfully, with the offensive line.

More sought-after free agents like Alex Boone and Josh Kline lasted one year. Low-priced free agents like Tom Compton and Dakota Dozier have played poorly. Brandon Fusco received an extension and immediately took a turn for the worse when Mike Zimmer arrived. Converted tackles Mike Remmers and T.J. Clemmings weren’t capable when asked to move inside.

And when veterans have failed, there hasn’t been a strong feeder system. Minnesota hasn’t drafted a true guard in the first three rounds since Marcus Johnson back in 2005, while late-round stabs at Chris DeGeare, Jeff Baca, Travis Bond, David Yankey, Danny Isidora, Colby Gossett and Dru Samia didn’t pan out. The Vikings seemingly shifted philosophies in 2017 when they started taking one highly-selected offensive lineman per year, but they focused primarily on centers and tackles. Ezra Cleveland converted from tackle to guard in his rookie season and performed decently in half a season at right guard (26th of 60 qualified guards, per Pro Football Focus) — maybe he’ll remain there and be the savior.

At any rate, the Vikings’ process has proved inadequate for most of the Zimmer Era, aside from getting a couple good years out of late-bloomer Joe Berger. On one hand, Minnesota has aimed high for the Boones and Klines of the world, yet they’ve rarely taken aggressive stabs for guards in the draft. It’s not as if they are averse to investing in guards — just not on Days 1 and 2 of the draft, it seems.

Unless the Vikings try another year of Dozier — the lowest-graded qualified guard in football — Minnesota will still have at least one guard opening, maybe two if they cut Reiff and move Cleveland to the outside. One of those openings should be filled early in the draft if possible based on the pile of evidence that Kirk Cousins caves under interior pressure. Dozier, for instance, had eight games last year with a sub-50 PFF pass-blocking grades. The Vikings went 1-7 in those games. That’s by no means a perfect stat, but it is probably not entirely coincidence either.

You can usually get by with subpar guards if you have Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson (and even they showed weaknesses with poor O-line performances during the playoffs/Super Bowl) — not Cousins. If Minnesota truly wants to equip Cousins with a well-fortified offensive line, finding their version of Elgton Jenkins, Chris Lindstrom or Dalton Risner in the early rounds seems smarter than gambling on Dozier or a veteran of that ilk. (Even better: If they can find that person while trading back in the first round AND acquiring a second-round pick.)

Don’t predetermine starting corner spots

Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings

Last year the Vikings assumed that their cornerback room would survive with one injury-prone starter in Mike Hughes, a suspension risk in Holton Hill and a whole bunch of rookies, ignoring potential veterans on the late-summer free agent market that could’ve contributed. That plan blew up quickly as a rash of injuries left the Vikings depleted and exposed in the secondary.

It would be a mistake to enter 2021 with a similar mindset.

Hughes will still be around, entering the final year of his contract. After back-to-back seasons with neck injuries, any amount of stability from him would be appreciated, but it shouldn’t be expected. Cameron Dantzler might be the best of the bunch at this stage, but the coaching staff has voiced its desire for Dantzler to bulk up this offseason after suffering several injuries in Year 1. And while Jeff Gladney was durable and showcased some impressive physicality for the position, he wasn’t perfect in pass coverage. Out of corners that played 800-plus snaps, Gladney allowed the third-highest passer rating (124.7), third-most completions (68) and most touchdowns (7) in the regular season.

Harrison Hand and Kris Boyd will still be in the mix, but counting on either of them to fill a starting spot for an extended period of time could be treacherous, as we already have seen with Boyd.

There’s upside on the roster for sure, but ignoring cornerback in free agency could leave the Vikings thin at a vital position. As prescribed above, there should be ways to add bodies without breaking the bank.

Lay the groundwork for Mike Zimmer to give up play-calling duties

Of all the recommendations in this story, this might be the longest shot. If Zimmer feels like he’s on the hot seat, he’s not going to give up the job that has as much bearing on the outcome of the game as any of his other duties. That being said, Zimmer has seemingly mulled over the idea for several years, and there could be merits to a change.

For one, introducing a fresh voice could yield a positive response from younger players and even reinvigorate veterans like Harrison Smith and Eric Kendricks, who would be useful resources in the transition. Coming off a season where the defense ranked 29th in yards allowed, it’s not as if Zimmer would be giving over the keys to a perfect unit, and a lightened workload on the sideline could let him spend more time absorbing game footage on his tablet and making adjustments.

Beyond that, taking play-calling off Zimmer’s plate could give him more capacity for game management, which hasn’t always been a strong suit. Analytics website EdjSports ranked Zimmer 21st among head coaches based on his decision-making in 2020.

Of course, there’s the question of which assistant Zimmer would trust to take his place. His son and co-defensive coordinator Adam Zimmer could be on track to call plays some day, but it could get awkward with his dad if things go poorly. Andre Patterson is one of the Zimmer’s closest confidantes, but we don’t know much about his play-calling ability. Then there’s Paul Guenther, who was just brought in as a defensive assistant. There’s no reason to assume he is more than that, but he did call plays for a good Cincinnati defense for four seasons (followed by three not-so-good years in Oakland/Las Vegas).

At minimum, the Vikings should use mini-camp, training camp and preseason to test whether a change would be feasible. Zimmer has expressed that he doesn’t want to be a second-guesser, and he’ll likely end up holding tightly to his favorite part of the job. But exploring the change wouldn’t hurt.

Maybe that’s the whole message of this piece: Exploring changes in the way the Vikings have done things in recent years wouldn’t hurt.

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Sam Ekstrom is now a member of the Purple Insider staff. He has been a credentialed media member covering Vikings since 2014. He has also worked as a sports talk host for 105 The Ticket and has numerous play-by-play duties.

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