Friday mailbag: Who's calling the shots?

Vikings fans are concerned about the future...

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By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday everyone. This is the largest mailbag ever, so make sure you look for Part 2 that’s coming to your inboxes (and sometimes Promotions folders) soon. Let’s dive right into the madness…

@Shaner1 Who actually made the decision to extend Cousins, Kwesi or the owners?

The best guess that I can put together from talking with people in the last few days is that management shopped Cousins and none of the offers were satisfactory, so they felt that the best option was to lower his cap hit with an extension. Once they couldn’t trade him, however, Cousins’ agent had the leverage to throw in the no-trade clause — a very savvy move on his side. I suspect teams were offering Carson Wentz prices whereas ownership wanted Russell Wilson prices.

@Alexandre_Zen What about Danielle? Any Thoughts?

I agree with the folks who say that it doesn’t add up to extend Cousins and then jettison Hunter. But if we just assess the idea of trading him in a vacuum, it does make sense. Pass rushers are insanely expensive these days — approaching quarterback prices. When we look at Hunter, we think of him as young but 28 isn’t 28 for everybody. Hunter has played a ton of football because he came into the league at age 20. Are there many guys whose peaks extend past 5-7 years? It’s probably 60-40 that he would continue to be great for many years to come but that 40 is pretty scary when you consider the money.

@jhallada316 early Friday mailbag question - if the Vikings' plan was to run it back and win now, would Harbaugh have been a better candidate to do that than KOC?

That’s an interesting thought. My mail hesitation with the Harbaugh concept was based on needing to take a long-term approach. Part of the reason I thought the O’Connell hire was a great choice was because he could build and grow with the roster. Now he has pressure for this thing to work right away and for him to be significantly better than Mike Zimmer. And here’s the thing about Zimmer: His firing came at the right time and he earned it in a lot of ways but he was not a bad football coach. O’Connell has to be well above average to make a significant gain over Zimmer. With Harbaugh, you knew he could do it as well or better than Zimmer. We don’t know anything about KOC yet.

@CoreyHermanson If the insinuations of the Wilfs nixing a Cousins trade are true, talk me out of the hopeless void. You can replace GM, coaches, and players, but you're stuck with the owners forever. How does it get better?

The best case is that they are able to get the cap in order, draft a bunch of key pieces this year, develop guys from the 2020 and 2021 drafts and then draft a QB in 2023 who can start in 2024. That’s a version of the expected plan, only delayed by a year…and with added void years that will hurt the cap later. The thing that will haunt your dreams is the idea of the Vikings improving their roster before the 2023 season and then going 10-7 and signing Cousins to another extension because they are “a piece away.” In that case, I can’t talk you out of it. Otherwise, there could still be a plan that sets up the next QB to take over a good roster. Or there still could be a lean-into-the-Kirk year in 2023 where they have a totally stacked offense and try to pull a 2016 Falcons pop-up year.

Rich via email: After the Cousins extension and what is says about the actual direction of the team (not the direction that was sold to the fanbase when Kwesi was hired), can you give me your prediction of what the next four years are going to look like and also why am I still a fan of this godforsaken team? 

Sure. In 2022, they’ll either have some ups and downs and go 9-8 or it’s quite bad and some teams pop up that weren’t expected i.e. Bears/Lions and they go 6-11. In 2023, they’ll rid themselves of cap space that they weren’t able to deal with this year, sign some bigger names and be more competitive in Cousins’ final year. Probably make the playoffs. They’ll draft a 2023 QB, let him sit behind Cousins for a year and then turn the team over to him and go crazy in free agency before 2024. If the QB hits, 2024 and 2025 could be really good. The franchise was not destroyed by a short-term extension for Cousins, but the Vikings basically passed on the chance to get that ball rolling today. If it makes you feel better, the Bills did the same thing after they hired Sean McDermott. They passed on Mahomes, coached Tyrod Taylor to a 9-7 year in 2017 and then drafted Josh Allen the following offseason.

@WarleyOwl What would need to happen in the draft to show that the new regime is different to the old regime, especially after the copy and paste efforts of the last week. Draft a WR in round one?

Drafting a receiver is probably the right answer. They’ve always been satisfied with just having a receiver duo and good tight end(s). We can’t say draft offensive linemen because the Vikings spent two firsts and two seconds on the current group. Drafting an edge rusher in the first would actually be quite different from the Spielman era. The Vikings seemed to think they were going to pick the next Everson or Danielle in the mid-rounds and it never happened .

@alstrain Ok but seriously, if the Wilfs are going to interfere this much, what are the odds Kwesi actually makes it the full 4 years?

It would be straight up wacky to fire a GM within the first three years unless the guy was completely incompetent but I do think there’s a scenario where this goes completely wrong. Where they go 6-11 and then 7-10 and then they’re trying to play a rookie in 2024 and that doesn’t work either and they make another change after being stuck in a rut. This happened when I covered the Buffalo Sabres. They fired a long-time GM in Darcy Regier after being mediocre for a few years and hired a progressive GM in Tim Murray. He made a bunch of trades that didn’t work and they stayed bad and he got fired quickly. For everyone’s sake, you have to hope that doesn’t happen. I would present, however, the Atlanta Falcons as evidence that running it back can lead to complete disaster.

@NorthStarsNHL Do Vikings officials read Twitter, listen to shows like Purple Insider, etc. to get opinions from media people and fans? If so, how much or little does that weigh in on decisions?

Rick Spielman joked with us about having a burner account and he would reference things we tweeted, so I know he read that part. Zimmer read everything in the newspapers and talked with me about a few of my articles. It’s pretty hard to miss in today’s world. These guys can’t do the old, “I don’t read anything you write,” anymore. I’d be pretty surprised if any of them were dialing up the Purple Insider pod every day though. It’s probably case-to-case when it comes to how much they would weigh. I once had a hockey scout tell me that he brought up a trade idea of mine in a meeting. So it happens. In recent years, the Vikings haven’t done many things that the informed side of the fan base and media have advocated for — not really even close — so in this case, we’re probably all just talking amongst ourselves here.

@G3R4LD26 Suggestions for things to do on Sundays for, let's say, between the dates of Sept. 11th to Jan. 8th?

This is the thing that the Vikings may be underestimating: Just changing the faces isn’t going to make everyone magically toss off the shackles of the last four years. Vikings fans are carrying around a lot of frustration and we saw it come out at US Bank Stadium last year. Not even just the last game but Aaron Rodgers even said the crowd wasn’t very loud during the Packers game (and I had the same observation). Running it all back means coming back with the same angst as the past. Fans aren’t going to be happy at this point with uninspiring football. If the KOC era starts off slow, say 1-3, the boo birds are coming out. The place will be dead. There isn’t going to be a lot of patience. Had they taken more of a fresh, long-term approach to this thing, expectations would have been very different and there would have been a lot more willingness to let it play out and enjoy the ride i.e. 2014 with Zimmer.

@jls1968 Would you rather have a team that wins 7-10 games every year and makes the playoffs 25% of the time and never gets a top 10 pick or have a team win 3-5 games for 2 or 3 years and a chance to build a team with top 5 or top 10 draft picks?

I’ve never had an easier question to answer. The Bengals were the extreme outlier making the Super Bowl as a 10-win team. The threshold in a 17-game season is probably going to be 12 wins. You aren’t getting to 12+ wins without elite talent. You get elite talent at the top of the draft. If the Vikings put themselves in a position to draft Bryce Young in 2023, that could change the trajectory of the franchise. Picking in the middle and barely ever making the playoffs is way worse. And how is eight wins better than three or five wins? Same result.

@ATKing53632390 Teams like the Jets, Lions, and Jags are thrown around as the "look how bad it could be" example. Are there teams that stand out as being consistently mediocre like the Vikings have been for the past half decade? Raiders maybe?

Yeah the Raiders for sure. Every other team that came to mind either had a tank season or a great season over the last few years. The best comparison recently is the last four years of Roethlisberger with the Steelers. They were a little better in terms of wins and had a year where Ben was out but it’s still been 9, 8, 12, 9 and they got blown out by the Browns in the playoffs when they won 12. The Jay Cutler Bears were like this. The Old Eli Manning Giants had a worse version. I think the most frustration from fans comes from the possibility of getting trapped into a very long stint of being “close” but actually nowhere close. If they don’t get really good, really fast, we’ll all wake up one day and it’ll be six years since the NFC Championship game in Philly with nothing to show for it.

@ryguy0021 Matthew. I’m perplexed. Are we seeing that maybe the previous regime had less to do with personnel decisions, especially at the end, than we thought? This feels like the last two off seasons all over again.

I wonder if the Wilfs felt they were too hands-off after finding out about the environment that had existed within the building at the end of Zimmer-Spielman. But I’d leave the door open to the possibility that the Spielman front office didn’t have a choice when it came to extensions for guys like Rudolph, Cook, Cousins etc. because they were popular and owners don’t like to get rid of popular players. I started to notice that no agent ever lost a negotiation vs. the Vikings after the original Cousins signing in 2018.

@oledustytrail is it fair to say that no trade clause aside, Kirk's contract is actually more tradeable next year than it was this year? And that if it doesnt work out this year he can be treated as wilson/watson lite and have a say in where hes traded in a year with a better expected QB class

Trading somebody with a no-trade clause is absolutely harder than without. The other part is that there are a bunch of teams this year who are really desperate for a competent QB. That might not be the case next year. If the Vikings go 8-9 again and Cousins is 35 without a winning season since 2019, I can’t see it becoming Wilson Lite. It’s more likely to become Dalton Lite where everyone just decides it’s not worth it. I keep coming back to the Mike Sando piece in The Athletic where executives and coaches voted him the 18th best QB in the league. I know some fans are really big on Cousins’ numbers but the league doesn’t see it that way. If he was considered at a top level, the contract wouldn’t have made a bit of difference in trading him this offseason.

@dcaron28 it's only a few days into free agency so try and talk everyone off the ledge with some logic and reason

They need to give me something to work with. There hasn’t even been evidence of them fixing the salary cap for the future — in fact, they hurt it with Cousins’ void years. We’re only a few days in….that’s the best I’ve got right now. There’s moves to come and we’ll be shifting the Freakout Meter as we go along this offseason.

@NFinneman Can you give me a reason to be optimistic about a GM and Coach brought in to be handcuffed by the owners? Can you give me any reason I should be excited about a team who signed a DT/LB to replace the ones they lost at essentially $0 net gain to the cap?

I do think the O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah are going to change the atmosphere of the organization significantly and update things that had fallen behind i.e. game management, data-based decisions, sports science and the general way everyone gets treated in the building. We don’t care about those things as much as roster moves but it does make a difference. Should you be excited about a DT/LB to replace the other ones? Probably not.

@DANS13SPIDERS WT actual F are we doing here??? All the talk of how Minne was going to make a big splash. how much turn over there was going to be, it was supposed to be a free agency to remember....

So I don’t think it was supposed to be a free agency to remember. If there was no extension for Cousins, we’d probably be looking at their moves so far and thinking this was the right approach. Don’t go crazy and lock yourselves into anything that could hurt later. The goal should have been to get themselves into a good place for the future where they could eventually build everything in their vision. I keep mentioning the Bills but they nailed it by moving on from a bunch of guys that were good, yet had unfavorable contract situations like Sammy Watkins and

@smccullough5 2 more years of Kirk (6 in total, at least) is a drop in the bucket for most Vikings nihilists. Putting aside all the valid arguments for why moving on from Kirk was the prudent move, should the Vikings just load up on offensive talent in the draft and lean into the Kirk?

Yes. If they’re not drafting a QB this year and thinking about the future, the entire goal should be to prove that Zimmer/Spielman had no idea what they were doing by singing/drafting defensive players and they should keep stacking everything around Cousins and throw 700 passes. Even if it blows up, at least you tried the all-in approach.

@RossiLidman Could the Vikings have extended Cousins to keep ownership happy but still tank? Cousins only got a two year deal. That gives them a season to figure out who can play on the defense and KOC can get his feet underneath him. Next year they draft a rookie QB who sits under Kirk while Cousins plays out his contract. Trading Danielle away and gathering picks could get them the capital to move up in the draft so Kwesi and KOC can get there guy.

They could still accidentally tank, for sure. Right now this roster is bad. If Hunter goes, it’s Jefferson, Thielen, Cook, Smith, Kendricks, two good tackles and… crickets. The NFC may not be as good as the AFC but there are a bunch of teams that could be good. The Packers, Bucs, 49ers, Cowboys, Rams, Cardinals are instantly better. Atlanta will be if they get Watson. Philly could be good. Giants, Bears, Lions could be better. Saints if they re-sign Watson could compete for a playoff spot. If the Vikings have anything go wrong, they could end up in that conversation for a top QB. If you can’t see it happening, look no farther than the Falcons picking No. 4 overall last year despite having a decent QB.

@onerealeazye Is Kwesi’s plan to leak Baker’s trade offer to get him traded from the Browns, and to make the Browns so desperate for Kirk that they offer us a post June 1st designation trade of their 1sts in 23 & 24 and offer Kirk a pay raise to waive his NTC?

This keeps coming up and I don’t want to completely dismiss it. Cousins’ contract does make him more tradeable from a cap perspective. Obviously not with the no-trade but are we 100% sure that exists right now or does it kick in next year? If all the dust settled and somebody came to the Vikings with a first-rounder because they missed the Available QB boat, would they be able to still swing it? Hm.

@BigPoppaH7 Should the NFL introduce relegation and remove the salary cap? Either way the Vikings will still finish 8-9.

There’s enough spring leagues with the XFL and USFL that they could bump up a team from those leagues to the NFL. Now that would be insane. Removing the salary cap won’t ever happen because it’s too good for the owners. Things like salary caps and drafts don’t really make sense but they create so much interest and storylines that they will be here forever.

@tua76466_g Please tell me you are hearing rumblings that the Vikings will draft a qb this year or next year. Please tell me that the maximum amount of “Kirk stability” is 2 years and nothing more.

I haven’t heard that about this year. I would assume QB is off the table but I could be wrong. If they drafted a QB, the plan would be much clearer and much easier to justify the extension. I can’t tell you that the next two years will be it. There’s a world where they are decent and the team thinks they need one more guard or something to get over the hump.

@KyeBaxter I think we need a pie chart for most likely position drafted at 12.

Right now I’d go pass rusher 45%, cornerback 30%, receiver 15%, QB 5% and 5% that one center guy.

@vikingsjazzfan It now seems like the Vikings are intent on a win now mode. Besides qb, how does this change their draft priorities?

It shifts them to filling needs. Which, yes, I know that sounds familiar. Not that anybody would have been mad at them for picking a pass rusher or corner. They need lots of pieces to put together a complete team. That’s the biggest thing with the Cousins extension: How are you building top-to-bottom roster? They absolutely need people who can rush the passer and cover if they’re ever going to win. Though I’d give them an A+ for picking someone like Garrett Wilson and giving Cousins all the receivers he can handle.

@thecsmm What are we going to do about edge when Hunter is traded, no quality free agent edges left, and Ojabo is the only edge prospect worth taking outside of the top 10, and he might even be gone before 12. We can’t afford another season of Wonnum and a backup if this team wants to win

There are a few rushers that are being given high marks that are outside of the top two guys but maybe it’s a trade-down situation (again, another thing the previous regime loved). You’re right though. Somehow last year they couldn’t get pressure from the front and still ended up with a ton of sacks. Are they scheming that many again? You need dudes who can beat tackles and right now they don’t have those dudes.

@scapar100 I keep seeing a lot of 'they must like Wyatt Davis' comments, I don't think all are meant ironically. Does this current regime have anything to base a like of Davis on, outside of college tape? Is there any reason to think this? Is Davis the OL Sloter but with less evidence?

People always overrate players that haven’t played before. That’s why everyone loves the draft, right? Davis didn’t even play when Ezra Cleveland got banged up and he was active. They used Blake Brandel instead. Not exactly an encouraging sign. However, players’ biggest jump is always from Year 1 to Year 1. There’s no reason they should rely on him to be the starter but we can’t completely write anyone off yet.

@ThomasFonder with how things have gone so far this off-season, when can we expect to see a Garrett Bradbury extension?

KG Voice: "Anything Spielman would have done is still possibleeeeeeee.”

I’m not sure. Even if KOC likes some things he sees on tape — and Bradbury does have some really good moments — you can’t see a player who got benched last year and decide you want to sign up for more without seeing him in your system.

@RealBHogenson How much happier would I be if the Wilfs had failed to get a stadium and moved the team to LA, freeing me from Vikings fandom and allowing me to watch the NFL as an uninterested observer?

So everyone’s feeling great about the direction of the franchise, eh? I don’t blame anybody for being distraught at this point. The history of this team hangs over it with everything that happens. There have been so many middling seasons that most people would rather see it be taken down to the screws and rebuild than suffer through the same “in the hunt” Decembers they’ve been enduring for a long, long time. The way I think about is: Nobody watches a taped game once somebody spoils the score, right? Because you already know the outcome. When it feels like you already know what’s going to happen here, it’s hard for fans to feel the same sort of enthusiasm as when it’s either really fresh or has a chance to actually win something. It’s on them to prove everyone wrong since history is against the present direction.