Friday Mailbag: What's next in free agency

Looking at the Aaron Rodgers discussion and the moves that are still to come

Photo courtesy Minnesota Vikings

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday, everyone. We have ourselves a lot to discuss with free agency and…uh…you know… those rumors. Let’s dive right in…

Bradley P… How fishy is it that only the Athletic seems to be reporting the Rodgers interest and everyone else aggregating it?

I’m sure there is a connection there between The Athletic reporters and Rodgers and they are passing along the information they are getting from his side. I’ve been frustrated in the last year or so by the number of speculative reports regarding Kirk coming back, Jefferson getting traded, KOC getting traded, Darnold coming back etc. etc. but the fact that they haven’t said anything publicly leaves us to think there’s some fire to the smoke.

Until we see KOC and JJ McCarthy out in front of the media talking about how he’s taking over as QB1, the speculation continues. They could EASILY put this to bed with a 20 minute press conference with head coach and quarterback.

I still can’t make it make sense in my brain though. The guy is 13-21 in his last 34 games playing with Matt LaFleur and a pretty stacked Jets team. He’s got a 90.7 QB rating since 2021 and was the 14th best QB by PFF last year. We have seen a bunch of young QBs go to the playoffs in recent years, including Jayden Daniels getting to the NFC Championship game last year and Brock Purdy making the Super Bowl in Year 2. Unless they don’t love McCarthy’s recovery, I don’t understand why they’d be afraid of rolling with him.

Murray H… Hi Matthew I am a Purple Insider addict!! I understand the four of the Vikings new signees had injuries last year For example Allen and Fries played less than 1/2 the season (Not unlike Cashman and Van Ginkel in 2024) Their bodies avoid the physical punishment for a chunk of the season and hopefully helps them to feel more refreshed in 2025 than players who slugged it out for 17-20 games. Do you think that’s an advantage that Kwesi factors in his process ?

Glad you’re enjoying the coverage, Murray. I always have trouble talking about injuries. It can’t be ignored that guys missed significant time but there’s no way of knowing from the outside if those injuries might be a factor in future performance. We all worried about Danielle Hunter’s back-to-back seasons where he was hurt and then he’s been fully healthy for years since then.

I do think there is something to the rest you’re talking about. In baseball, it used to be said that guys came back throwing faster after Tommy John surgery because their arm and body had time to rest for the first time in forever. I don’t think any team would look at a 30+ year old player tearing his pectoral as an “advantage,” but I’m sure they have data on every injury and the chances of it being problematic in the future.

Everything for this front office is a bet. Sometimes they have won on bets with guys coming off injuries like Aaron Jones or AVG, sometimes they have lost like with Marcus Davenport. To pay Jonathan Allen that much, they must feel really confident that his age/injury history won’t be an issue.

Robert S… If we're talking timeline and Super Bowl windows, do the ages of these older free agents correspond well enough with JJ's age? Meaning, are they going to be too decrepit in, say, 2026, when he's really ready to be a Super Bowl qb?

I like the use of the word “decrepit” to describe guys that are 6-8 years younger than me. The way I view this roster is that the Vikings have pillar players and complimentary players. The pillars are Justin Jefferson, Christian Darrisaw, Brian O’Neill, Jonathan Greenard, TJ Hockenson, Josh Metellus and I’ll throw Fries and Byron Murphy Jr. in there with their new contracts. These are the guys who drive your success and would be very hard to replace. They are all in their primes.

They signed a lot of complimentary players in Allen, Hargrave, Kelly. All of them are between good and very good and make the roster much stronger but they aren’t irreplaceable and they won’t sink the franchise if they don’t perform at a high level. The Vikings didn’t go into free agency hoping to find guys who were going to be their superstars, rather fill in areas of weakness that exist around the superstars.

This is the thing they were never able to do in the Kirk era (which extends to his $28M dead cap hit in 2024). The only option was to get a bottom-barrel signing or hope that a development player could jump from the bench to starting 17 games. Now they don’t have to do that.

It’s a long way of saying, the guys who make this a legit contender will be here for McCarthy’s rookie contract and they can continue to load up on complimentary players in free agency and hope to draft a couple more pillars going forward.

Dermot B.. Hi Matthew, love the show. Of the remaining free agents, who would you say would be the best fit for the Vikings.

They brought in Rondale Moore for a visit. I like that idea. He’s the quick slot guy that I’ve been talking about. Elijah Moore was that guy for the Browns last year too. If they aren’t getting Cooper Kupp, players like that are interesting.

I’m not sure if they are done with the cornerback position but Kendall Fuller and Mike Hilton are vets who can still play.

With RBs getting basically no money, maybe JK Dobbins is worth looking at.

Could Dalton Risner come back? He’s been a top pass blocker for two years. It doesn’t sound like they are in on Teven Jenkins.

For a backup quarterback, I’d go Cooper Rush.

GM…. it appears they still have around $40M in cap space (a little more if Bradbury gets traded or released). I could be wrong but that seems like a lot considering who they’ve signed and what they’ve spent. I know a lot of what they have done is backloaded and I’m assuming they can adjust some of these contracts to have a heavier burden on this year to get that number down if they choose. With that said, this feels like they may be trying to keep that number healthy in the event they come across an opportunity for a “splash” signing. Am I wrong to think that way? If that may be the case, I sure hope it’s not Rodgers but wondering who else might be available for a large, $20+M a year contract.

I would definitely like to see more corner depth added as well as DL & WR.

You aren’t wrong that they have a lot of cap space left and that it’s possible they have purposefully left themselves room for a big signing or trade. At this point in the game there are only a couple guys who would draw a decent pay day. Cooper Kupp would be one, Mekhi Becton could be another.

They do have a lot of depth spots to fill. A backup QB is going to cost $5-$10M and if you add another six or seven guys, you’re down below $20 million with a (small) draft class to sign. It goes fast.

One thing to keep in mind is that you get to carry over space, so if they left some gap this year, they could mitigate some of the impact of the big signings by carrying it over to next year and still be able to spend in 2026 free agency.

Welcome to the new age where the Vikings have so much cap space that we wondering if something is bound to happen.

Bradley P…. From the Athletic, “It doesn’t sound like teams will be eager to give away second- or even third-round picks to move up — the main exception being at No. 1, if/when the Titans decide to bolt from the top pick.” Does this mean the Vikings are either stuck at 24 or they get hosed if they want to trade back? What does the actual contract details say about the Vikings free agent class of 2025?

No disrespect to anyone reporting on the draft but I have no idea how anyone could even begin to project what’s going to happen with trades on March 13 when the draft is in late April. Always worth remembering that teams do not tell people on the outside what their plans are for the draft. But I will say that this draft seems to feature a ton of quality talent that is projected to land in the second or third round, which might make it a little harder for the Vikings to move back. All it takes is one team to fall in love with a guy at 24 though. Has there been a year in recent memory where nobody made a trade in the latter part of the first round?

As far as the actual contract details, Jonathan Allen’s contract is much more like a two-year deal. Byron Murphy’s is basically the same deal as Ward, Reed and Davis when you get down to the brass tacks of it and he has a ton of room for restructures in 2026 and 2027. The Will Fries and Javon Hargrave contract isn’t in the OverTheCap system yet.

As always, the real numbers are quite a bit different from the agent-driven numbers on social media.

Jeff… Can you explain how they are able to agree on so many new contracts in less then 24 hours when it took seemingly months to get Justin Jefferson's contract worked out? Also, are there multiple people authorized to work out the contracts as it is hard to see how Kwesi and Rob B. could do it all by themselves.

First, the Jefferson deal got worked out months and months before it actually had to be done. He could have fought tooth and nail and sat out training camp but instead he wrapping things up by minicamp. It was a huge win for the Vikings to have it settled before camp.

In Jefferson’s case, since they weren’t close to the deadline to get a deal done, both sides could dig in on what they were looking for and then as they got closer to camp, his agent and the Vikings did a little give and take and worked through it. Plus, they had to have every single detail set in stone for the largest contract in history for a non-QB player before they could really say it was done. That’s a lot of work.

Free agency doesn’t work that way. You see the news come up from Schefty or RapSheet when the two sides have agreed to terms. Those deals aren’t actually inked yet, they are just handshakes and every so often they fall through (like Milton Williams to Carolina or Anthony Barr to the Jets).

Free agency is also a fast-paced game of musical chairs where the top guys are scrambling on the opening day of “legal tampering” to get as much money as possible as fast as possible before teams’ spending dries up. Notice how by Day 3, everyone had a home? There is no deadline technically but all these agents know that if you get to Week 2 of free agency, you’re not getting a big contract for your guy. They work out the basics as fast as possible, get the details hashed out later and then fly the guy into town to sign before he has any chance to get a call from someone else with more money. Very different ballgame from negotiating in house with someone over a longer period of time.

Allen in Delaware… Play GM: Who do you think would be the best option at backup QB for JJ?

Based on who is left, give me Cooper Rush. He has a 9-5 career record with a good team and seems like an A+ guy. That’s what the Vikings need behind McCarthy. Give him a QB who has been around the block and can help him every step of the way. If they need a starter for four games, he can win two. The last guy on my list by 50 miles is Jameis Winston. I wouldn’t want anybody who’s going to be a media darling or draw any attention away from QB1.