The Minnesota Vikings have invested heavily into its offense over the past few seasons.
Kirk Cousins has the seventh-highest average salary ($33 million) of all NFL quarterbacks and currently carries the largest cap hit of any quarterback in 2022 of $45 million that season.
Meanwhile, the Vikings recommitted to their philosophy of being a run-first offense last September by re-signing Dalvin Cook to a five-year, $63 million contract.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell asserted that this conflict in committing to being a run-first team while paying Cousins a ransom is counterintuitive and “one of the most puzzling and frustrating struggles in the league.”
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‘Commit to Your Philosophy’
With the trade rumors surrounding Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, Barnwell took the opportunity to throw a sucker punch at Minnesota by making the Vikings an example of how to not build your team.
Barnwell argued that the Seahawks, in the unlikely event Wilson is traded, need to commit to their philosophy of being a run-first team by using the Vikings as a comparison. Barnwell’s comparison seemed a bit on the nose considering both Seattle and Minnesota have strayed from winning games with defense and have struggling offensive lines.
Here’s what he wrote:
Commit to your philosophy. One of the most puzzling and frustrating struggles in the league is in Minnesota. Vikings coach Mike Zimmer has publicly insisted that his team’s focus is on running the football, even to the extent of firing offensive coordinator John DeFilippo. At the same time, the Vikings have had a pair of star receivers on their roster in Adam Thielen and either Stefon Diggs or Justin Jefferson. More notably, they’ve spent $84 million on Kirk Cousins over the past three years and will pay the veteran $64 million more between 2022 and 2023.
If a team wants to build around its running game, that’s fine. Doing that and paying a quarterback $148 million over five years just seems counterintuitive. If the Seahawks decide to trade Wilson, they probably need to work back toward the run-first philosophy Carroll has espoused over the majority of his time in Seattle. That probably means spending less at quarterback and devoting more toward the running game. The offensive line seems like an obvious place to target, but the Seahawks could also conceivably look toward a running back, given that Chris Carson is a free agent and Rashaad Penny missed most of 2020.
The other philosophical argument you could make is that the Seahawks need to start winning games with their defense again. Their defense helped carry them to victories in the second half of 2020, but it finished the season 16th in defensive DVOA. The Seahawks haven’t ranked in the top 10 in defensive DVOA since 2016. They dealt two first-round picks last summer to acquire Adams, but they could also use some of the haul from a Wilson trade to try to build a top-five defense again.
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Few teams have seen considerable success by making both a quarterback and running back among the highest-paid players at their positions.
Since 2011, only 13 teams have allocated at least 17.5% of their total salary cap to their QB1 and RB1, pe Sharp Analysis.
It’s become a rarity for a team to be built with that much cap dedicated to two positions that often run independently from each other in the offense.
It’s also rarer to find success with this model:
- These 13 teams won seven games on average
- Ten of the 13 teams produced losing records
- Three teams made the playoffs, posting a 1-3 combined record
Not all the blame can fall on Cousins, who has produced on-par with his salary over the past few seasons, per Over The Cap’s evaluation. Cook is also only to take up an expected 2.8% of the 2021 cap space.
However, the conundrum of how much cap space they’ll demand will reach its peak in 2022 with Cousins’ $45 million cap hit and Cook’s $12 million he’s due — nearing roughly 30% of the team’s cap space in 2022.
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- Wild 3-Team Trade Proposal Has Vikings Dealing Cousins to Land Superstar
- Stefon Diggs Has Strong Message on Vikings’ Justin Jefferson
- Ex-Viking Stefon Diggs Sounds Off on Team’s New WR Coach
- Vikings Rookie Justin Jefferson Fires Back at Kirk Cousins Critics
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Expert Blasts Mike Zimmer, Vikings for Most ‘Frustrating Struggle’ in NFL