Are we closer to 'all-in' or 'rebuild' in your opinion?

Is that a rebuild or just father time forcing their hand? To borrow the house remodeling analogy from Brandon, holding onto to all these old vets is like having a fire in your house without insurance. It forces a remodel, but you lost most of your furniture. If you have a normal remodel, you can maybe sell some of your old furniture and get some value back.

And while the Vikings do all that, they'll be wasting the talents of their overpaid WR and 2 young bookend tackles lol. By the time they find their next franchise QB, we'll be making excuses for him. No receivers, no OL ...

A "competitive rebuild" is just a deceptive way of saying they're going to do everything they can to at least try to keep the dynasty of mediocrity afloat, but hope to get lucky one of these times. A hedge. If they win 4-5 fewer games this year (8-9 wins), they can say it's part of the rebuilding phase.

I didn't know Kramer was the benchmark lol. That era was early in my fandom, but I don't ever remember thinking he was the answer. In fact that's why the Vikings brought in Wade Wilson, to push/compete with Tommy because I don't think the Vikings thought he was the answer either. Plus he was always injured. The current Vikings never bring in a Wade Wilson, and mostly because they can't afford to. In that sense Kirk is worse than Tommy, in that he's never going to lead you to a SB like Tommy, but he's more expensive and thus prevents you from doing anything about it, which adds to the frustration. A lot more people, myself included, would be less critical of Kirk if he wasn't getting paid like a SB caliber QB.

Is that a rebuild or just father time forcing their hand? To borrow the house remodeling analogy from Brandon, holding onto to all these old vets is like having a fire in your house without insurance. It forces a remodel, but you lost most of your furniture. If you have a normal remodel, you can maybe sell some of your old furniture and get some value back.

We clearly have different tiers of "franchise QB's". Every year Dan Marino was in the league, the Dolphins were a Super Bowl favorite. A Kirk Cousins team has never been a Super Bowl favorite. Yet both can be considered franchise QB's, but for very different reasons. It all boils down to your expectations. When it comes to the Kirk supporters, it's always along the lines of, "well, you can't find anyone better atm". Nobody ever thought that about Dan Marino lol. With Dan it was always, he's clearly one of the best QB's ever and it's just a matter of time before he wins 7 Super Bowls. He never did, but nobody knew that at the time. With nearly 100% certainty, I can say Kirk is never going to win a Super Bowl. That's not hate, that's based on all the current evidence, and his 1 playoff win as an 8 year starter.

I agree with you. Kirk is a franchise QB, by definition, but I think that's the wrong question, and probably not what ratsalad or many of us had in mind. "franchise QB" and "can lead you to a Super Bowl QB" are getting mixed up here. Kirk is the former, not the latter. Sometimes a good franchise QB can keep in that that "competitive" 9 to 10 win range that some are comfortable with. In fact I would say most franchise QB's fall into that category. They keep you in the hunt, but they're never going to be favorites.

Well those worse QB's weren't making a fraction of what Kirk is making. Dilfer, Johnson, and McMahon weren't commanding 1/8th of their teams salary cap, which helped allow those teams to build legendary defenses. Kirk's salary plays a role in why the Vikings defense is so lousy. Zim had a top 5 defense before Kirk got here, and we watched it slowly deteriorate.

Besides, if you need a legendary team to help a QB win a Super Bowl, why are you paying that QB all the money? You're saying something when you pay someone that kind of money. He's good enough to overcome any shortcomings his salary creates, or is good enough to elevate the team around him. Like a Bert Farve type. He inherited a mediocre team and instantly elevated them to NFCCG caliber. He even got Sydney Rice paid. Kirk inherited a NFCCG caliber team and made them mediocre.

The Vikings had virtually no injury problems last year and didn't even help them get close to a Super Bowl. Why are our expectations merely making the playoffs lol? That's the ceiling with this squad unless all these draft picks finally contribute to something outside of special teams, and that's not a good thing. At what point is the empty trophy case embarrassing enough to make this franchise finally get serious about trying to win a championship? We no longer have the Cubs and Red Sox to hide behind. We're on the clock.

I mean c'mon man!