Thoughts on the initial roster, and Kwesi's first offseason
Sept 1, 2022 11:39:36 GMT -6
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Post by Krauser on Sept 1, 2022 11:39:36 GMT -6
Wrote out my thoughts on the initial roster this year, and what that says about the team and its GM. Apologies for the length.
This was finished before the Reagor trade and ISM release, but I think they do fit in with the analysis here. I've updated the piece in a couple of places to reflect that.
1. Cost cutting was a priority
Releasing Watts and trading Jesse Davis opened up a few million in cap space. At first glance it looks like the Vikings now have room to make a significant addition or two -- they had roughly $10M in cap space coming into this week and just opened more -- but they actually might not have much room at all.
They (*may) need to budget nearly $4M for per-game roster bonuses for Za'Darius Smith, Hunter and Thielen, which hit the cap this year if those players stay healthy (*update here: it may be possible to push these costs on to next year's cap, which would mean they could run a small overage this year). Add in the costs of running a practice squad ($3-4M), a small budget for game-day roster elevations and street free agent signings as IR replacements, and the dead money costs of releasing a bunch of mid-round draft picks, and they're barely breaking even:
In a vacuum, it would've made sense to keep Watts at least as depth even if they wanted to play Bullard on early downs or trade for Blacklock for his upside. And it would've been nice to have Jesse Davis as a multi-position OL backup even if Reed or Brandel might play ahead of him.
But they needed to free up some cap space somewhere, and the only other options were restructuring a veteran contract or two (O'Neill would free up ~$2.4M this year, Kendricks and Cook would open up more but would complicate next year's cap). So I think that was one of the main reasons for these moves.
Kwesi is going to be strict about limiting costs at the margins.
2. They've added a lot of rookies
9 of 10 draft picks are on the initial roster, with the 10th (Muse) hopefully sticking on the practice squad where he should be TE4 assuming Davidson gets claimed. Two UDFA rookies (Wright and Vilain) also made the team.
11 rookies on the 53-man roster is a lot -- even more than the big roster turnover year of 2020, when Spielman made 15 picks and 9 stuck on the initial roster, plus Dan Chisena as a rookie UDFA.
One difference this year compared to Spielman's big draft classes in 2019-21 is that Kwesi's picks came earlier in the draft: 4 in the top 70, 9 in the top 200, without a long list of late 6th and 7th round picks.
As I pointed out at the time, this was the result of Kwesi's draft trades, where he effectively cashed in his most valuable pick at a small loss in order to create more picks in the early and middle rounds. His goal apparently was to add depth in multiple areas, more than finding one or two elite players at the top of the draft. And that showed up on the roster this week, as all of those added picks made the team. Had he turned down the Lions lowball offer and used the #12 pick on one potentially blue chip player (the comparison I use is Hamilton instead of Cine), the draft class would've been smaller, and/or the picks later, and that would show up on the roster today.
3. Their veterans are mostly signed for 2 or more years
A recurring pattern in the late Spielman era was the Vikings acquiring a veteran on a one-year deal, to be a stopgap starter or backup. The Covid cap crunch played some role, but it often seemed that Spielman was left looking for quick fixes and bandaids, without the resources to make better or longer term upgrades.
Vikings had lots of players last year who were pending free agents after 2021, most after signing 1-year contracts:
Mannion
Abdullah
Westbrook
Herndon (traded in the last year of his rookie contract)
Cole (traded in the last year of his rookie contract)
Hill
Richardson
Weatherly
Griffen
Barr (renegotiated to a 1-year deal)
Vigil
Peterson
Breeland
Alexander
Woods
That's 16 players who were all expiring UFAs -- about 30% of the team, including half of the starting defense and the first-choice backups at several positions.
Most of Kwesi's veteran acquisitions this year don't fit that pattern. The exceptions who made the roster:
Mullens (only acquired because Mond bombed)
Peterson
Sullivan
Bullard
Schlottmann
(Jesse Davis would've been listed here, but he was traded)
The other free agents added this year were signed for 2 years (Hicks, Mundt, Reed) or 3 years (ZDS, Phillips). They also traded for Blacklock, who's under contract for 2 years, releasing Watts who was in his final year. Reagor also fits that timeline, and effectively replaces Bisi, who was in his final year.
That 2-3 year window lines up with the Cousins extension (covering 2022-23) and reworked deals for Thielen, Smith and Hunter, which effectively tie those players to the team for 2-3 more years.
The list here doesn't include rookie contracts that expire next year (Bradbury, Smith Jr, Mattison, Boyd, Udoh) or previous longer-term veteran acquisitions entering their final year (Tomlinson) but next year's list of pending free agents is much shorter than the comparable list at this time last year.
4. The depth has been turned over and the cap is better balanced
Zimmer complained last year that the Vikings roster was "top heavy".
He had a point -- they had 11 mostly expensive veterans on long-term contracts (Cousins, Cook, Ham, Thielen, O'Neill on offense, and Pierce, Tomlinson, Hunter, Kendricks, Barr, Smith on defense), but had invested little in the depth beyond that aside from Spielman's annual blizzard of draft picks. Their stopgap veterans were either old or bad -- the only players they could afford given their cap situation. They had no middle-tier contracts -- signings over vet minimum but for less than top tier money at the position, for more than a year.
A year later, 9 of those 11 players are still in Minnesota (all but Pierce and Barr), and several of them are actually tied to the team for the longer term thanks to extensions (Cousins) or contract restructures (Hunter, Thielen, Smith). So the names at the top of the roster haven't changed much.
But the supporting cast has changed a lot -- the lower priced starters and backups have turned over considerably. Almost all of the one-year veterans have been replaced (Patrick Peterson is the only returnee). A number of last year's depth options still on rookie contracts were released, including over half of the 2021 draft class but also Hand and Watts and Blake Lynch and Chisena, with Willekes ending up on IR before that.
The new class of rookies will fill a lot of those places but they've also added some of the mid-tier veteran contracts (like Hicks, Phillips and Smith) and longer-term lower-tier contract (Reed, Mundt) they rarely if ever had under Spielman.
With all these changes, I'd say the Vikings roster is less top heavy than it was a year ago, though still not entirely well balanced under the cap. For one thing, they have over $24M in dead cap charges this year (nearly 12% of the cap) -- in the top half of the league and pushing the top 10.
5. Kwesi is willing to be aggressive, and he's not going to be overly patient
As many draft trades as Spielman made, he rarely made any notable moves around cutdown day, unless forced to replace an injured player (Bradford, Ngakoue, Herndon -- an ugly track record).
Kwesi this week pulled the trigger on several surprise moves, effectively reversing course on some of his own decisions: Jesse Davis as a stopgap starter RG, Mond as the developmental QB2 and Watts as the starting 5-tech DE. None of the moves involved any major costs -- including the Blacklock trade, it was a 6th and a 7th for two 7ths -- but they reshaped the roster even before we got to see some of the players in action (Davis and Watts each played only a few handfuls of snaps in preseason).
(*update: the Reagor trade is probably the most aggressive move of all, especially combined with releasing Smith-Marsette)
Beyond that, Kwesi was aggressive in moving on from rookie contract players who aren't ready to contribute, and may never be. I mentioned a few times this offseason that I thought this was a "sink or swim" year for Spielman's last 3 draft classes. That's how it turned out.
From Spielman's last 3 draft classes, here's what's left:
2019: 2 starters (Bradbury, Irv Smith Jr) and 3 backups (Mattison, Udoh, Boyd, plus Bisi Johnson if he wasn't on IR)
2020: 4 starters (Jefferson, Cleveland, Dantzler, Osborn) and 5 backups (Wonnum, Dye, Lynch, Brandel, Metellus)
2021: 2 starters (Darrisaw, Bynum) and 3 backups (Jones, Nwangwu,Smith-Marsette).
That's 8 starters and11 10 backups -- a very nice return over 3 draft classes, but one that has required a lot of attrition, as there were 38 players drafted in that span (19 18 of them retained: exactly just under half).
It's fair to say that almost all of the depth options who were retained showed some improvement this preseason, and earned their spots. They weren't kept around simply out of hope for future development but because they've shown they can be useful contributors right now.
This is a welcome change.
6. They really do see this as a "competitive rebuild"
They did stay competitive -- retaining almost all of their best players and adding several more high quality starters.
But they are also rebuilding, with a significant youth movement that required some difficult choices at the draft, and contracts that give a longer timeline for most of their veterans.
I think the plan is for a 2-year window with Cousins at QB, followed by a reset with either a new QB or Cousins re-extended for another year or two in a way that lowers his cap hit.
I doubt they'll be great this year, but they should be pretty good -- "competitive" but not a contender. If the pieces come together surprisingly quickly, they could be better than that next year.
This was finished before the Reagor trade and ISM release, but I think they do fit in with the analysis here. I've updated the piece in a couple of places to reflect that.
1. Cost cutting was a priority
Releasing Watts and trading Jesse Davis opened up a few million in cap space. At first glance it looks like the Vikings now have room to make a significant addition or two -- they had roughly $10M in cap space coming into this week and just opened more -- but they actually might not have much room at all.
They (*may) need to budget nearly $4M for per-game roster bonuses for Za'Darius Smith, Hunter and Thielen, which hit the cap this year if those players stay healthy (*update here: it may be possible to push these costs on to next year's cap, which would mean they could run a small overage this year). Add in the costs of running a practice squad ($3-4M), a small budget for game-day roster elevations and street free agent signings as IR replacements, and the dead money costs of releasing a bunch of mid-round draft picks, and they're barely breaking even:
In a vacuum, it would've made sense to keep Watts at least as depth even if they wanted to play Bullard on early downs or trade for Blacklock for his upside. And it would've been nice to have Jesse Davis as a multi-position OL backup even if Reed or Brandel might play ahead of him.
But they needed to free up some cap space somewhere, and the only other options were restructuring a veteran contract or two (O'Neill would free up ~$2.4M this year, Kendricks and Cook would open up more but would complicate next year's cap). So I think that was one of the main reasons for these moves.
Kwesi is going to be strict about limiting costs at the margins.
2. They've added a lot of rookies
9 of 10 draft picks are on the initial roster, with the 10th (Muse) hopefully sticking on the practice squad where he should be TE4 assuming Davidson gets claimed. Two UDFA rookies (Wright and Vilain) also made the team.
11 rookies on the 53-man roster is a lot -- even more than the big roster turnover year of 2020, when Spielman made 15 picks and 9 stuck on the initial roster, plus Dan Chisena as a rookie UDFA.
One difference this year compared to Spielman's big draft classes in 2019-21 is that Kwesi's picks came earlier in the draft: 4 in the top 70, 9 in the top 200, without a long list of late 6th and 7th round picks.
As I pointed out at the time, this was the result of Kwesi's draft trades, where he effectively cashed in his most valuable pick at a small loss in order to create more picks in the early and middle rounds. His goal apparently was to add depth in multiple areas, more than finding one or two elite players at the top of the draft. And that showed up on the roster this week, as all of those added picks made the team. Had he turned down the Lions lowball offer and used the #12 pick on one potentially blue chip player (the comparison I use is Hamilton instead of Cine), the draft class would've been smaller, and/or the picks later, and that would show up on the roster today.
3. Their veterans are mostly signed for 2 or more years
A recurring pattern in the late Spielman era was the Vikings acquiring a veteran on a one-year deal, to be a stopgap starter or backup. The Covid cap crunch played some role, but it often seemed that Spielman was left looking for quick fixes and bandaids, without the resources to make better or longer term upgrades.
Vikings had lots of players last year who were pending free agents after 2021, most after signing 1-year contracts:
Mannion
Abdullah
Westbrook
Herndon (traded in the last year of his rookie contract)
Cole (traded in the last year of his rookie contract)
Hill
Richardson
Weatherly
Griffen
Barr (renegotiated to a 1-year deal)
Vigil
Peterson
Breeland
Alexander
Woods
That's 16 players who were all expiring UFAs -- about 30% of the team, including half of the starting defense and the first-choice backups at several positions.
Most of Kwesi's veteran acquisitions this year don't fit that pattern. The exceptions who made the roster:
Mullens (only acquired because Mond bombed)
Peterson
Sullivan
Bullard
Schlottmann
(Jesse Davis would've been listed here, but he was traded)
The other free agents added this year were signed for 2 years (Hicks, Mundt, Reed) or 3 years (ZDS, Phillips). They also traded for Blacklock, who's under contract for 2 years, releasing Watts who was in his final year. Reagor also fits that timeline, and effectively replaces Bisi, who was in his final year.
That 2-3 year window lines up with the Cousins extension (covering 2022-23) and reworked deals for Thielen, Smith and Hunter, which effectively tie those players to the team for 2-3 more years.
The list here doesn't include rookie contracts that expire next year (Bradbury, Smith Jr, Mattison, Boyd, Udoh) or previous longer-term veteran acquisitions entering their final year (Tomlinson) but next year's list of pending free agents is much shorter than the comparable list at this time last year.
4. The depth has been turned over and the cap is better balanced
Zimmer complained last year that the Vikings roster was "top heavy".
He had a point -- they had 11 mostly expensive veterans on long-term contracts (Cousins, Cook, Ham, Thielen, O'Neill on offense, and Pierce, Tomlinson, Hunter, Kendricks, Barr, Smith on defense), but had invested little in the depth beyond that aside from Spielman's annual blizzard of draft picks. Their stopgap veterans were either old or bad -- the only players they could afford given their cap situation. They had no middle-tier contracts -- signings over vet minimum but for less than top tier money at the position, for more than a year.
A year later, 9 of those 11 players are still in Minnesota (all but Pierce and Barr), and several of them are actually tied to the team for the longer term thanks to extensions (Cousins) or contract restructures (Hunter, Thielen, Smith). So the names at the top of the roster haven't changed much.
But the supporting cast has changed a lot -- the lower priced starters and backups have turned over considerably. Almost all of the one-year veterans have been replaced (Patrick Peterson is the only returnee). A number of last year's depth options still on rookie contracts were released, including over half of the 2021 draft class but also Hand and Watts and Blake Lynch and Chisena, with Willekes ending up on IR before that.
The new class of rookies will fill a lot of those places but they've also added some of the mid-tier veteran contracts (like Hicks, Phillips and Smith) and longer-term lower-tier contract (Reed, Mundt) they rarely if ever had under Spielman.
With all these changes, I'd say the Vikings roster is less top heavy than it was a year ago, though still not entirely well balanced under the cap. For one thing, they have over $24M in dead cap charges this year (nearly 12% of the cap) -- in the top half of the league and pushing the top 10.
5. Kwesi is willing to be aggressive, and he's not going to be overly patient
As many draft trades as Spielman made, he rarely made any notable moves around cutdown day, unless forced to replace an injured player (Bradford, Ngakoue, Herndon -- an ugly track record).
Kwesi this week pulled the trigger on several surprise moves, effectively reversing course on some of his own decisions: Jesse Davis as a stopgap starter RG, Mond as the developmental QB2 and Watts as the starting 5-tech DE. None of the moves involved any major costs -- including the Blacklock trade, it was a 6th and a 7th for two 7ths -- but they reshaped the roster even before we got to see some of the players in action (Davis and Watts each played only a few handfuls of snaps in preseason).
(*update: the Reagor trade is probably the most aggressive move of all, especially combined with releasing Smith-Marsette)
Beyond that, Kwesi was aggressive in moving on from rookie contract players who aren't ready to contribute, and may never be. I mentioned a few times this offseason that I thought this was a "sink or swim" year for Spielman's last 3 draft classes. That's how it turned out.
From Spielman's last 3 draft classes, here's what's left:
2019: 2 starters (Bradbury, Irv Smith Jr) and 3 backups (Mattison, Udoh, Boyd, plus Bisi Johnson if he wasn't on IR)
2020: 4 starters (Jefferson, Cleveland, Dantzler, Osborn) and 5 backups (Wonnum, Dye, Lynch, Brandel, Metellus)
2021: 2 starters (Darrisaw, Bynum) and 3 backups (Jones, Nwangwu,
That's 8 starters and
It's fair to say that almost all of the depth options who were retained showed some improvement this preseason, and earned their spots. They weren't kept around simply out of hope for future development but because they've shown they can be useful contributors right now.
This is a welcome change.
6. They really do see this as a "competitive rebuild"
They did stay competitive -- retaining almost all of their best players and adding several more high quality starters.
But they are also rebuilding, with a significant youth movement that required some difficult choices at the draft, and contracts that give a longer timeline for most of their veterans.
I think the plan is for a 2-year window with Cousins at QB, followed by a reset with either a new QB or Cousins re-extended for another year or two in a way that lowers his cap hit.
I doubt they'll be great this year, but they should be pretty good -- "competitive" but not a contender. If the pieces come together surprisingly quickly, they could be better than that next year.
... and neither is this Chris guy.