Does Bailey Bounce Back?

So, it would seem at long last that the Vikings have their specialist crew solidified. The long-snapper, kicker and punter/holder all did quality work in 2019 and all are signed for three more seasons.

But at what cost?

Let’s take a look at the draft capital it took for them to arrive at this point first. Remember, Spielman went against the grain by spending picks on Walsh and Locke in his first two drafts as GM. Many general managers prefer not to spend draft capital on kickers, punters and long-snappers, opting to sign them as UDFAs or grab them off waivers or as street free agents. Walsh was a hit for a while until he wasn’t, and Locke was never more than breathtakingly ordinary.

In 2018, Spielman’s draft-a-kicker strategy struck again when he spent a fifth-round pick on kicker Daniel Carlson. He only lasted two regular-season games (1 for 4 on field goals) before Zimmer’s head exploded.


Then, of course, a seventh-rounder was spent on Cutting in 2019. Don’t forget, however, Spielman traded a fifth-round pick from the 2020 draft to the Baltimore Ravens last August for the opportunity to watch fabled kicker/punter Kaare Vedvik miss kicks in preseason games. His Vikings career lasted 20 days. Another swing and miss. In essence, the Vikes spent that fifth-rounder to conclude that Bailey was their man. And as it turned out, Spielman wound up making a record 15 picks in the 2020 draft, so the fifth-rounder spent on Vedvik was a borderline moot point. That’s a good spin, right? It sounds better that way.

Bailey and Colquitt were obtained as free agents after other teams let them go. Maybe a lesson has been learned here.

Next, let’s look at what it’s actually costing the Vikings in terms of salaries to forge ahead with their specialists inked for another three seasons.

We’ll start with Cutting, who is playing on his rookie deal and, as a seventh-round long-snapper, doesn’t cost the Vikings much. His cap number is $693,644 this season, according to overthecap.com and will max out at just under $1 million in 2022.

Colquitt has cap numbers of $1.8 million in 2020, $3.2 million in 2021 and $3.9 million in 2022. Bailey’s cap numbers are $2.1 million, $3.8 million and $4.05 million the next three seasons.

Adding those cap hits together puts the Vikings at about $4.7 million invested in their LS/P/K combo for 2020. That’s not too shabby. According to a nifty chart on spotrac.com, only 10 teams have a lower combined cap hit from their specialists in 2020 as of this moment.

Obviously, as the Vikings have shown repeatedly, there can be a lot of turnover among kickers and punters across the NFL, so the numbers will move around. Even so, to have two dependable veterans like Bailey and Colquitt on board and still rank in the bottom third of the league in terms of what you’re spending on specialists has to make Spielman and Zimmer sleep better at night.

If you look ahead to 2021 and 2022, with the salaries of all three going up each season, the Vikings don’t rank nearly as low in terms of money spent on specialists. However, most teams don’t have their kickers and punters under contract for three seasons right now, not to mention also having their long-snapper under contract for several years. And again, the specialist landscape is always a fluid situation, so the Vikings should continue to be in good shape in terms of a financial investment when compared to other teams.

Now all they need is for Bailey, Colquitt and Cutting to have another quiet, boring, dependable year so that Zimmer doesn’t have smoke coming out of his ears and Spielman isn’t forced to scramble for yet another combination.

If they do, and if the Vikings make the playoffs again this season… laces out and split the uprights. It’s a solid plan at a good price.

7. Dan Bailey, Vikings

Through the first six seasons of his career (2011-16), Bailey was the most accurate kicker in NFL history, but then the wheels fell off the wagon in 2017 when he suffered a groin injury during his final year with the Cowboys. After the injury, Bailey wasn't the same. As a matter of fact, he almost kicked his way out of the NFL in 2017 and 2018, two seasons where he hit just 75% of his field goals. The reason Bailey is on this list though is because he rebounded big time in 2019 with the Vikings, hitting 93.1% of his field goals (27 of 29), which ranked fourth in the NFL. Bailey was so good last season that he didn't miss a single field goal after Week 7 as he closed the year with 22 consecutive successful kicks, including the playoffs. Including 2019, Bailey has ranked as one of the NFL's five most accurate kickers in four of his nine seasons, and he's currently ranked as the sixth-most accurate kicker of all-time. The 2020 season will be a big one for Bailey. If he can continue his success from 2019 and make 2018 a distant memory, he'll shoot up this list, because when he's at his best, he's easily one of the top-five kickers in the league.