Barr/ Players attitude towards restructuring!

I think there's a two-fold plan for that:

1) They're going to have to really find "value" in the free agency market and pay low-end money for injured "stars" looking to play a starting role and potentially cash-in next offseason. An example of that is UFA FS Malik Hooker: a former 2017 1st Rd pick who's shown flashes of why he was a 1st Rd pick, but has battled injuries nearly his entire time in Indy. He'll likely have to settle for a lower-end, 1-yr deal on a lower cap year and hope to play well with starting snaps in 2021 to cash-in next offseason. 

2) The Vikings are going to have to do a better job of consistently finding "value" in the Draft. Yes, the 2020 Draft will probably be considered a success since it's likely we netted at least two solid starters in Jefferson & Dantzler and quite possibly 4 if you include Gladney in Ezra (jury is obviously still out for them), and possibly some depth pieces in Wonnum, Dye & Hand....

Here are the potential pitfalls to each of those:

- Part of finding the "value-players" in free agency is that the Vikings haven't exactly been the greatest at that. You could argue that the best value-deal of any team in the last 5 years was the Vikings signing Keenum for $2m in 2017: he was a decent starting QB for them in 2017 and they received approx $15m-$20m of solid starting QB value and only paid $2m for it. And when Rick "poached" Rashod Hill off the Jacksonville Practice Squad at the end of the 2016 season, that was solid "value" because they were able to keep a decent swing-OT (and spot-OT starter) on the roster for really cheap. But outside of some of those examples, I think Rick has failed to find halfway decent value on the free agent market, especially with "value-players". They tried to find value in the OL by signing Tier 3 players like Tom Compton and Dakota Dozier, but those were obvious fails. Many fans think Bret Jones is a solid IOL depth player, but the problem is he hardly sees any snaps and the coaching staffs relies on the Compton's/Dozier's so what good is it? 

- The other part of bringing in "value-players" is they have to want to sign here and there's two parts to that...the first is we have to have an opportunity for them to get valuable snaps so they can prove they nee to be paid more. If we sign someone and they don't play (outside of being injured) it won't work for them and we didn't get anything out of it. On the earlier example of Malik Hooker, the Vikings will probably have an opening at the FS position, which will provide an opportunity for him to earn that spot and get valuable snaps to showcase himself for the 2022 offseason. The second part of free agents wanting to come to Minnesota is the part I fear: that we're a "contending" team. The Vikings were seen to be a "contending" team in the 2018 offseason after they signed Kirk: they came off a Conference Championship game and looked to build on that...so they were able to "woo" free agent Sheldon Richardson to sign with us for 1 yr...but after 2019/2020, we're probably not considered a "contending" team anymore, and if the choice for a "value player" like Malik Hooker is between the Vikings and someone else on-the-rise (say the Dolphins, Bills, potentially Cardinals or Browns), they could take a slight bit less to play for the contender because they'll get even more exposure playing in the postseason and possibly even get a ring out of it. Basically, the Vikings don't have that "it" factor to sell to free agents right now...and regardless of how you feel about Zimmer/Kirk, let's face it, players aren't exactly flocking to Minnesota to come play for for/with them...

- In terms of the Draft, I think most in here have discussed this ad-nauseum by now and I'm sure there will be even more discussion as the 2021 Draft approaches, but the Vikings are not consistent enough of finding value in the Draft during the Rick/Zimmer era. Yes, 2015 was good/great, and yes, 2020 appears to be good/great....but there's been a whole lot of bad drafts in-between, too, and certainly not any consistency of being good/great. The recent PFF article that Funky posted in another thread on which teams are the best at finding "value" in the Draft really put it best (link): the Vikings were a bottom-10 team in terms of recent draft success when you account for positional value and weighing by round....the Vikes need more 2020's and less 2016-2019's in terms of draft success going forward...

So knowing all that, the question becomes: do you think the Vikings can actually do those things? Personally, at this point in the Rick/Zimmer era, I need to see it to believe it...so if past experience dictates future results, I don't think they can and I need to see it before I believe it...I think most of us had "hope" at the beginning of the era (after 2014/2015) that we were on our way, but after Teddy's injury, the organization has "limped-on" in band-aid mode ever since - pun intended...