Spielman's legacy is failing to build around an expensive QB

The Vikings slipped after signing Kirk Cousins but that was in part due to inefficient moves

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By Matthew Coller

At the 2018 NFL Combine, Mike Zimmer had a clairvoyant moment. He said that if the Vikings signed an expensive quarterback, they might not have enough cap space to spend elsewhere and the roster could fall apart. Zimmer added that if they made the wrong decision at QB, they’d all get fired.

Well, here we are.

On a day where the world is picking at the bones of the Mike Zimmer/Rick Spielman era, we naturally go back to the Kirk Cousins contract as the point of downturn. The Vikings reached the playoffs two of the previous three years, including a trip to the NFC Championship game, before signing him to the largest guaranteed deal in history at the time. Cousins’ performances and the team’s weaknesses over the last four years were not a good mix. He wasn’t able to make up for the holes in the roster that his contract created. He wasn’t able to play with poor offensive lines and he wasn’t capable of winning many shootouts.

However, just because it’s true that Cousins’ contract was restrictive doesn’t mean it should have been impossible to overcome. Eight of the 11 biggest cap hit quarterbacks (DeShaun Watson not included) in the NFL this year will be playing in the playoffs. Two of the expensive quarterbacks who missed the postseason Carson Wentz and Russell Wilson saw their teams finish with positive point differentials.

The Packers have the No. 1 seed with the third highest QB cap hit. The Rams and Cowboys won their divisions with the ninth and 10th highest hits, respectively.

Aaron Rodgers and Dak Prescott are better quarterbacks than Cousins and his relative equal Matthew Stafford had a solid overall season but the Packers, Cowboys and Rams’ rosters from players 2-53 are also better than the Vikings by leaps and bounds. They have better defenses, better offensive lines, better depth, and equal or better weapons.

So it’s clear it can be done. A big QB contract doesn’t have to mean the rest of the roster collapses. But Spielman’s decision making over the last four years combined with some unfortunate draft luck Zimmer’s fears to come to fruition. And that’s at the center of why the Vikings are looking for new leadership as we speak.

In 2018 and 2019, the formerly No. 1 defense remained largely in tact but the miscues elsewhere were costly. The Vikings spent on another defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson rather than solidifying the offensive line and ended up starting career backup Tom Compton for the entire year. They moved Mike Remmers’ position rather than finding a replacement and the guard pair ended up giving up the third and 13th most pressures in the NFL at their position.

Between ‘18 and ‘19, they twice attempted to fill the No. 3 receiver spot with bottom-barrel free agents who failed before breaking camp. On key fourth downs, Cousins targeted draft bust Laquon Treadwell multiple times in ‘18. The following year, Adam Thielen got hurt and Bisi Johnson was called upon to play No. 2 as a seventh-round rookie.

On its face it doesn’t seem egregious to have mishandled the guard and No. 3 receiver spots but they botched them to the point of playing replacement-level players big roles with a quarterback that needs everything humming to succeed (as evidenced by his strong numbers with a clean pocket or throwing to open receivers).

The Vikings followed by making odd draft decisions in 2019, picking a center, the lowest paid non-specialist position, a backup tight end and a running back with the first three picks. Irv Smith Jr. may someday be a very good player but none of those are premium positions. AJ Brown was taken right after Smith Jr. when the Vikings were already aware that Stefon Diggs was disgruntled and had no answer at No. 3 receiver.

Again, these aren’t serious crimes like, say, trading a second-round pick for Sam Darnold, but in a land ruled by positional value, they prioritized zone blocking and finding Latavius Murray’s replacement.

The Vikings also became overly loyal to players that had been a part of the 2017 team. When Anthony Barr decided he didn’t want to sign with the Jets, the Vikings welcomed him back with open wallets to the tune of a $67 million deal. They kept Xavier Rhodes for one year too long. They picked up Trae Waynes’ fifth-year option. They re-worked Everson Griffen’s deal despite a down 2018 season. They extended Kyle Rudolph. That was on top of Diggs, Kendricks and Hunter contracts.

Along the way the Vikings started a trend of restructures and deals that kicked the can down the road with cap hits.

Eventually the bills came due. Between 2019 and 2020, the Vikings cut Rhodes, Linval Joseph, Griffen and let Waynes walk in free agency.

Speilman’s final two years proved that there’s a difference between a win-now mentality and outright desperation.

The 2020 offseason decision making defied any type of roadmap or plan for rebuilding parts of the team that had been damaged by cap issues. On the first day of free agency, the Vikings signed Cousins to a massive contract extension which would lower his immediate cap hit, which Spielman said helped them sign Michael Pierce, but feature his highest cap hits in 2021 and 2022. So the one year that his cap number was reasonable was also the year that they had too many issues on defense to legitimately compete.

They franchise-tagged Anthony Harris, traded a second-round pick for Yannick Ngakoue and drafted two corners to start. None of it added up. Were they rebuilding the defense or swinging for the fences? Or throwing things at the wall hoping something would stick?

The peak of bizarre decisions came when kicker Dan Bailey and punter Matt Wile both struggled in training camp and the Vikings traded a fifth-round pick for kicker/punter Kaare Vedvik, who had never played in an NFL game. Vedvik was cut a few weeks later. The Ravens traded a fifth for star Calais Campbell the next year.

Years of trying to recreate the 2015 draft also caught up with them. They failed to develop mid-round defensive linemen and busted on first-round corners Mike Hughes and Jeff Gladney. None of the late-round linemen like Colby Gossett or Kyle Hinton turned out. Nobody became the next Diggs or Danielle Hunter either. When Hunter got hurt in 2020 camp, Ifeadi Odenigbo and fourth-round rookie DJ Wonnum were asked to fill his shoes.

Drafting Justin Jefferson saved everyone for a year. Had the Eagles selected Jefferson instead of Jalen Reagor, you can bet Diggs’ dominance in Buffalo would have reflected much worse and we would have been having this conversation before the 2021 season.

In the middle of all of it, they signed running back Dalvin Cook to a contract extension. Signing a RB, no matter how good, is considered the ultimate inefficient move in the NFL because of the number of deals that have blown up, most recently including the likes of Todd Gurley and Christian McCaffrey.

The 2021 first-round was an exercise in short-term thinking to save jobs. Riley Reiff, who had been asked to take a pay cut in 2020 for the Ngakoue trade, refused a new contract and left in free agency leaving the Vikings with no left tackle and not enough money to sign one. So they passed on a possible future starting QB in Mac Jones to trade down and take Christian Darrisaw. The team reportedly had no interest in Jones, who will lead the Patriots into the playoffs next week. Darrisaw could ironically end up as a good long-term move for the next GM though.

If there was no pressure on the GM to win in 2021 and justify the Cousins’ contract, do they make a better effort to trade up for Justin Fields or pick Jones?

The free agency plan was clearly to rebuild Zimmer’s defense, which took the brunt of the blame for a 7-9 2020 season. They did so with a bunch of low percentage moves. What were the chances that a second nose tackle would have a huge impact? Or that Patrick Peterson would dominate coming off two straight down years in Arizona? Or the under $3 million club of Bashaud Breeland, Mackensie Alexander and Xavier Woods would produce vastly different results in the secondary? Dede Westbrook and Sheldon Richardson seemed like savvy signings at the time but the league clearly refused to pay them for a reason.

Surprisingly, the Vikings didn’t draft a corner to develop. They did, however, hope that third-rounder Wyatt Davis could start at right guard. That idea failed quickly and again the Vikings made a player change positions with hopes and dreams of finding a competent interior lineman. Hopes and dreams, it remained.

There was another oddball move mixed in: A fourth-round pick for Jets fourth-string tight end Chris Herndon. To put the trade in perspective, the Eagles dealt a conditional sixth for quarterback Gardner Minshew. Meanwhile, the Vikings stuck with inexperienced Sean Mannion as the No. 2, knowing that Cousins had a heightened chance to miss games with COVID. Maybe trading for Minshew would have meant admitting they missed on the Kellen Mond pick.

Individually, all of the things that went sideways for the Vikings could have happened to any team. Draft picks busting or on-the-cheap signings not working out are pretty common. But in order to work around Cousins’ cap hit, which was the second highest in the NFL this year, the Vikings needed to thread a small needle with pragmatic moves and instead they threw many of the practices advocated by cutting edge teams to the wind.

Not only did the moves not work and the Vikings came short of the playoffs in back-to-back years but they crippled their future by focusing so much on trying to get back to the playoffs.

Inside the walls of TCO Performance Center, there was also a feeling of helplessness from some very talented people. When Mark Wilf talked about wanting a “collaborative” effort from their new leader, he wasn’t just using a platitude.

Now the Vikings will look for a new decision maker. They have an opportunity to better use some of the talent within the front office to make decisions and plot out the coming years of the organization. They have a chance to take the long view on upcoming moves, even if that doesn’t mean a “rebuild.”

Whether the next GM wants to attempt to build around an expensive quarterback, well, that will be the most pressing question when ownership sits down for interviews with candidates for the next leadership position. Maybe Spielman left a note in his desk to tell the successor that it turned out to be harder than it looked in March 2018.

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