Minnesota Vikings News and Links, 30 May 2023

It is going to be interesting to see what other moves are made.

Other Vikings stuff ...

ESPN: Vikings Should’ve Made ‘Bigger Commitment to Contending or Rebuilding’

In ranking the Vikings’ offseason 20th out of the league’s 32 teams, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell said the team should’ve made a bigger commitment one way or another.

What went wrong: The Vikings didn’t make a bigger commitment to contending or rebuilding. Given a difficult cap situation, it’s tough to feel as if they have a great handle on what sort of team they’re going to be in 2023 and 2024, given that they just won 13 games while being outscored by their opposition. They moved on from Kendricks and Thielen but held on to Harrison Smith. They were willing to keep (Za’Darius) Smith and (Dalvin) Cook on the roster into May when that cap space and cash could have been budgeted elsewhere in March.

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How the Vikings Are Turning the Corner After a Comeback Season

The circumstance the Vikings found themselves in after the Giants ended their season in the wild-card round wasn’t an unforeseen one. Because of how contracts were structured before their arrival, O’Connell and Adofo-Mensah were looking at having eight players with eight-figure cap numbers for 2023, with those eight adding up to $147.85 million (66% of the cap). Five of those numbers jumped by $8 million or more from ’22, and the top four chewed up almost $100 million ($95.122 million, or 42% of the cap, to be exact).

Of course, the financial part of the Vikings’ reset shouldn’t be lost in a mess of transactions. Minnesota is, indeed, carrying more than $30 million in dead money this year, and that number could still climb. So yes, simple math is a big part of all this.

I’m not going to post the entire piece but it is well written and worth a read. A positive outlook on the possibilities going forward.

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