Despite spending heavily on Kirk Cousins this offseason, the Vikings are still intent on trying to keep their core of young players together. This includes Anthony Barr, Stefon Diggs and Danielle Hunter, who the team hopes to extend according to Chip Scoggins of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. 
Though they hope to get the deals done, the Vikings know that will be a tough task. General manager Rick Spielman said, “We’re still going to try. Is it going to be easy? No.”
Diggs and Hunter are some of the best bargains in the business at the moment, both costing just $1.9MM against the cap in 2018. The Vikings picked up Barr’s fifth-year option in 2017 and he is set to cost $12.3MM in the upcoming season. All three deals are set to expire after the 2018 season.
Scoggins adds that Spielman and team executive vice president of football operations Rob Brzezinski have been planning for this for three years, which led them to signing Everson Griffen and Linval Joseph to extensions despite them having additional years remaining.
Though it might be difficult to keep everyone around, if they are able to crunch the numbers they won’t have any pushback from ownership. Spielman said they have never heard “no” from the Wilfs on a potential deal.
It would be difficult to see the Vikings parting with Diggs, who just authored arguably the most famous play in team history when his touchdown grab vs. New Orleans as time expired sent Minnesota to the NFC Championship game.
If I’m not mistaken, the Vikings cap starts gets very tight in 2019, and it won’t let up for the next 3 years. They’re going to have a lot of trouble keeping their best players around.
Fact: Since the advent of the salary cap era, you can either pay a QB, OR several players on a great defense. Not both.
The Vikings are certainly all in in 2018 and they have shortened their window to win it all considerably with that asinine Cousins deal. Top QB money for a not-top-10 QB.
Only the Vikings. And the Browns….
Please…You want to think you know but you don’t …Barr is already counting $12m against the cap and they still have $20m left this year. Cap also growing each year…QB money is a lot but Garropolo got 27.5m after 7 starts and Cousins money will be passed buy 10 guys in the next 2 years…proven player and he got what he got…asinine maybe in your mind but a loaded team needing only a piece or two…you go for it!!
Credible coming from a bear fan??? did not realize you sit in on cap meetings…cap growing and Jimmy G got 27.5m for 7 starts so with a great team you do what you need to do…
First of all, I’m a Packers fan. (Bearmeat, not Bear’s Den or something like that). So you folded on that one. Second, I’m not sure someone with a screen name of “Purple Hammer” indicates the most objective fan in the history of the universe either.
I’m pretty sure you are mistaken, and that the Vikings can afford to extend Barr (lowering his cap hit this year), Diggs and Hunter, the latter two deals kicking in with 2019 like Kendricks. As usual, I expect relatively low amounts of guaranteed money to be built into the seemingly generous contracts.
Some of the money for those extension will come from rolling some of this year’s remaining $14 mil or so over to next year, while more will come from saying goodbye to Sheldon Richardson, Terence Newman and Brian Robison next year and Kai Forbath this year, and there are likely to be some restructured deals (Warning: One such deal might be to increase Adam Thielen’s pay. Who says restructuring always has to benefit the club?). And then, of course, there’s the annual increase in the cap itself.
I haven’t seen one credible article claiming that the Vikings will have to cut loose more than one of the trio of Barr, Diggs and Hunter, although there are some worries that Waynes could complicate matters, even with his fifth-year option being exercised for 2019. Still, no one seems to be panicking, in the front office, on the team or in the press.
We’ll see. History says differently. Why would Minny be any different than any team not named the Pats in the past 20 years? Especially when you consider how much they are paying Cousins for how not-elite the guy is.
Smacks of Pad Statford (Matt Stafford) or Philip Rivers to me. How have those great deals worked out for their teams?
I wasn’t in favor of the Cousins’ signing – I wanted Andrew Norwell to be our big off-season signing – and I certainly respect history, but Spielman, Brezinski and Zimmer are clearly working their strategy carefully, and with planning. Setting aside Cousins, I emphasize that one of the key parts of this strategy is highballing the announced value of contracts BUT lowballing the guaranteed values. And they certainly are not shy about demanding that players restructure their contracts.
The worst extension that the Vikings have made over the last few years was for Jarius Wright, and the worst year of that deal was 2015. The only player who I could see even wanting to hold out for a better deal is Adam Thielen, and there seems to be no, zero, nada movement in that direction, at least this year.
Cousins may not be an elite QB, but every indication is that the Vikings will succeed in keeping virtually every home-grown player they want to keep on the team, even with his deal.
I’m skeptical. Actually, most of the league is too. History says what it says.
But that’s why they play the game. We shall find out!
That we shall. Peace.
And the Ravens.
I’d have to argue and say Kirk Cousins IS a top 10 QB..
I would group the top 10 QB’s like this (in no order)
Tom Brady
Aaron Rodgers
Drew Brees
Big Ben
Jimmy Garropolo
Russell Wilson
Cam Newton
Carson Wentz
Matt Stafford
Kirk Cousins
Next Tier
Deshaun Watson
Alex Smith
Jared Goff
Matt Ryan
Derek Carr
Andrew Luck
In most decades, you wouldn’t really see Cousins as a winning, league-wide top 10 QB, but right now, the NFL is suffering from a scarcity of true top flight QB’s…Leading to a QB like Cousins making the top 10..
Solid QB’s are in demand, and Cousins is a solid QB..The Vikings were a solid QB away from being consistent contenders for the next couple of years…It’s tough paying a QB so great of a percentage of your payroll, but that’s the cost these days, if you’re going to have a reliable, good QB..It is what it is..
Now that they have their franchise QB, the Vikings are going to have to get creative to keep their defensive depth, and roster depth as a whole…This is where finding productive players in the draft becomes even more important than normal..It could mean the difference between maintaining depth at a position, or having holes throughout your roster..
And for those that will complain about me leaving Matt Ryan off my top 10…#1. He would be my #11…#2. Personally, I just don’t believe he is a QB that you can count on when the game is on the line…Julio Jones tremendously helps Ryan out, and helps correct quite a few of the mistakes Ryan makes…Also, Freeman and Coleman help Ryan out a lot as well…All three provide Ryan with a bit of a safety net, yet Ryan still continues to male mistake after mistake when his team needs him the most…
How he got the nickname Matty Ice is quite clear…When the game is on the line, and the Falcons need a big play, Matt Ryan freezes up..He is a QB, that genuinely struggles making solid reads on his own, and only found solid success when he had Shanahan telling him what to do on a play by play basis…Without Kyle, Ryan continued to struggle making adjustments, and he continued to cost the Falcons’ wins…
Ryan has his strengths, but his strengths are severely limited by his weaknesses..Until he can overcome that mental block, he’ll never be an elite QB in the NFL..
To put jimmy g in over Ryan is absurd. The end.
Lol….your list….whatever queens fans have to tell themselves.
Cousins is mid tier. You overspent on him out of desperation.
Not to defend dudes list but if you take out Matt Ryan’s MVP year Cousins has better stats with severely worse talent. He’s been a top 10 statistically so far in his career on a bad team we’ll see how he does on a top 4 team.
Let’s also remember that other than the Cook injury, the Vikings were remarkably injury free last year. I wonder how’d they’d do if Barr or Kendricks or Smith went out? Maybe a few of them? My guess is that they’d still be a playoff team but would not be “a top 4 team.” Quite possibly not even winning their own division.
Odds are we’re going to find out this year. Injury rates tend to return to the norm after an outlier year.
Well said bravesfan88!!! The top 10 list is right on with maybe luck sneaking in once healthy…Jimmy G has 7 starts and is getting 27.5m per…nobody gripes about that and The Jets offered more?? at least Cousins has proven himself over the last 3 plus years
no. no its not. cousins is top 15, mayyybe
To flesh it out in order:
Aaron Rodgers
Drew Brees
Tom Brady
Russell Wilson
Big Ben
Matt Ryan
Jimmy Garropolo
Carson Wentz
Matt Stafford
Cam Newton
Kirk Cousins
Deshaun Watson
Alex Smith
Jared Goff
Derek Carr
Andrew Luck
And I very well could have put him lower. 🙂