How will Derrick Henry's contract impact Dalvin Cook?
Titans signed their running back to a $50 million deal, will Cook get more?
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings
Moments before the deadline to sign franchise-tagged players, the Tennessee Titans and Derrick Henry came to an agreement on a four-year, $50 million contract extension with $25.5 million guaranteed. Henry’s new deal makes him the fourth highest paid running back in terms of average annual value. It also provides an outline for the Minnesota Vikings to sign Dalvin Cook to an extension.
Henry’s new contract carries cap hits of $6 million and $13.5 million in the first two years and then Tennessee will have flexibility to get out of the contract with only $6 million in dead money if they release him in 2022.
People with knowledge of Cook’s contract situation (he is currently holding out until he gets an extension) view Henry’s contract as favorable for the Vikings’ Pro Bowl back.
Cook is a more versatile player and equally as effective on the ground. Cook has averaged 4.6 yards per rush over his career, Henry has gained 4.8 yards per attempt while the Vikings’ star back caught 53 passes last year compared to 18 for Tennessee’s workhorse.
Henry isn’t often used in passing situations, playing 40-plus snaps in only six regular season games last season whereas Cook played more than 40 snaps in nine games despite being slowed by injury (and 50-plus snaps in five of the nine). And while past injury issues are a concern for Cook, he is also younger than Henry by nearly two years.
“I now view there being three running back tiers,” OverTheCap’s Brad Spielberger told the Purple Insider podcast. “There’s the do-everything [running back], Christian McCaffrey tops the market there. There’s your scat back/third down specialist, Austin Ekler tops the market there. I think Derrick Henry — going away from what Le’Veon Bell did — he kind of settled. He said, ‘I’m a two-down back’… and settled into another kind of market at $12.5 per year.”
Spielberger said Cook fits in closer to the McCaffrey category than Henry because of his usage in the passing game.
Of course, McCaffrey is in a different stratosphere of versatility from nearly everyone in the league. Last season he lined up as a receiver on more than 100 plays and caught a total of 116 passes. Cook did his damage in the passing game entirely out of the backfield, lining up in the slot or wide only 25 times. He did, however, lead all running backs in yards after catch.
Henry’s deal creates a bookend for Cook’s next contract. It would be surprising if the Vikings were willing to pay him more on average than McCaffrey considering the Panthers’ back is considered the premier player in the NFL at the position. But Cook wouldn’t be likely to settle for less than Henry’s contract.
“I think Dalvin is above [Henry] at $13 or $13.5 on a per year basis,” Spielberger said.
That would put him in the range of David Johnson’s $13 million per year and Ezekiel Elliott’s $15 million.
How they structure the deal would matter significantly to both sides. Elliott doesn’t have a cap hit that goes over $15 million until 2022. The Vikings have always been clever about kicking the can down the road with cap hits (hello Danielle Hunter’s $9 million hit this year) so they could aim to have Cook’s biggest cap number when the league is set for 17 games.
In terms of fully guaranteed money, the dollars are very close between the top backs with Johnson making $24 million, Elliott getting $28 million and McCaffrey with $30 million (per OverTheCap).
The Cook deal is more or less laid out for both sides if they want to make it. And based on past contract negotiations, it wouldn’t be a shock to see a new deal announced on the day that players arrive for training camp (whenever that might be).
If Cook’s side wants him to be the highest paid running back in the game or the Vikings believe — along the lines of some analytics folks — that running backs are too replaceable to spend a large percentage of the cap on them, we might end up seeing the Cook/Vikings conflict go deeper into the summer.
However, the Vikings have made it clear that in Gary Kubiak’s offense they see Cook as the centerpiece. GM Rick Spielman said at the Combine that it’s always the team’s goal to keep talented players around. Henry’s contract may give the Vikings the bump they needed toward doing just that.
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