Minnesota Sports Forum

Interesting read on cutting Wright.

http://www.espn.com/blog/minnesota-vikings/post/_/id/25997/vikings-super-bowl-hopes-soar-in-landing-sheldon-richardson-after-kirk-cousins

I looked back at Redskins to see if there are any guys that Kirk had success with that we could target and was just shocked how average or below average his WRs were. I can't see how he will be much better throwing to Thielen and Diggs. It will be interesting what we do at 3rd WR. We always seem to be looking for that guy. My gut says the 4 young WRs we have are not the answer. I would love to see us get a vet that is cut and wants to be on Superbowl roster.

Also the Patriots traded for Patterson. I will be curious how they use him. As average as he was as a WR he changed the game with his returns and turned into a good gunner.

bleedspeed177 wrote:Interesting read on cutting Wright.

http://www.espn.com/blog/minnesota-vikings/post/_/id/25997/vikings-super-bowl-hopes-soar-in-landing-sheldon-richardson-after-kirk-cousins

I looked back at Redskins to see if there are any guys that Kirk had success with that we could target and was just shocked how average or below average his WRs were. I can't see how he will be much better throwing to Thielen and Diggs. It will be interesting what we do at 3rd WR. We always seem to be looking for that guy. My gut says the 4 young WRs we have are not the answer. I would love to see us get a vet that is cut and wants to be on Superbowl roster.

Also the Patriots traded for Patterson. I will be curious how they use him. As average as he was as a WR he changed the game with his returns and turned into a good gunner.

If I remember right after a decent start CP basically didn't do a whole lot down the stretch as a receiver. Of course the Pats could end up getting more out of him. If he isn't where he is supposed to be on routes he won't get on the field much that way.

As for the Vikings receivers it sounds like there is still mutual interest in Wright coming back. If he doesn't that means they have 2 spots open with Floyd likely gone and then it's not like Coley has his spot locked up although they probably like him. Wright is sorta like a smaller less talented version of Diggs and Thielen a guy that can do a bit of everything and somewhat underrated. It would be nice to have a guy that complimented Diggs and Thielen either big time burner as a deep threat of a big body guy (maybe Treadwell). Of course it would be great to get one guy that did both which is kinda what Floyd was supposed to do but he didn't play much.

Aproximent snap percentage for WRs for the Vikings

Thielen 90%+
Diggs 69%
Treadwell 44%
Wright 22%
Floyd 13%
Coley 1%

So you can see Treadwell played quite a bit. The Vikings update guy wondered in a podcast with Souhan of sometimes Keenum locked in on Thielen and could have looked more towards Treadwell. It's possible. If I was a QB I would look to chuck it towards Thielen too. lol I saw some article that Cousins really spread it around (part is because so many receivers and seemed like they had injuries) but yeah. It's not like the Vikings couldn't end up with another solid receiver that's a rookie or young player that wasn't a top pick or even drafted. I've always liked Wright though so if he comes back that would be great. I'd be surprised if he had teams beating down the door to sign him. Lots of decent vet WRs go unsigned going into the season every year.

Wright to me seems like the perfect Patriots type WR. Someone that does exactly what is asked of him.

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

TheSP wrote:

JasonIsDaMan wrote:

bleedspeed177 wrote:I think you are right on Robison. I felt like he would have been cut, but we have a lot of young DE's behind him that should be ready to play and god damn as president of the Jaleel Johnson fan club he will be a force this year.

I agree about waiting out an OG. I wonder what we do at CB. We need a vet for depth.

We are really setting ourselves up to be able to draft best available. I was surprised about Murray too. I just don't see there being a market for him, but I think he has been a good lockerroom guy and did his job. That is certainly a big thing with this organization.

We are lucky to have Wilf's as owners. I would have to rank them as the best sports team owners in the state and top 10 in NFL. I think Polads and Taylor get more shit then they deserve, but are not the same level as Wilf's.

Funny, I think Taylor and the Pohlads get way less shit than they deserve, and Craig Leopold may be the worst, which is really scary.

What is wrong with Leopold?

An owner's main job is picking the right GM. Everything flows from there. Fletcher has been bad. He looked like a genius when he got Dubnyk, but his other deals have been horrible, and no GM should get credit for Parise, Suter or Stahl because those guy just picked the Mild because its the closest team to their house. And if I read one more story about how Fletcher is god's gift for drafting that Russian who will never play for MIN because Putin paid off (put definitely never threatened) his father, I'm going to throw my computer against the wall. The guy was there in the 5th round for a reason.

But back to the Pohlads for a minute. EVERY player with a no-trade has the Twins on it? Why is that? Molitor? Mauer? Morris? Blyleven cursing on TV? Shinders going out of business? All the downtown pizza-by-the-slice places closing up? The Al Franken incident? Doubt it.

This is just more championship or bust BS mentality. Fletcher has overseen the best stretch of hockey the organization has ever had. We've made the playoffs 5 straight seasons and we're on our way to 6. That's not a bad GM. He's far from perfect and he's made his share of mistakes, but that's BS to call him bad. I haven't been a fan of all his decisions (his trade deadline moves last year tanked the most promising season we've had because he brought in too many guys who needed to play), but he is far from a bad GM. He's just not a perfect GM so he's garbage according to Jason. I'm shocked.

I don't think slot will be a huge priority given how many 2 TE sets we run. We'll see with the new OC. I'd like to see them rotate Diggs and Thielen in that spot to give Treadwell more playing time. I'd be down to being Wright back as well and give him a little bit bigger role because he's been solid when he's out on the field. It's a good problem to have that Thielen and Diggs are top 20 WR's, but it does kind of kill the Treadwell pick. It'd be nice if our recent top picks were filling more needs rather than being the luxury picks they've been so far. Hopefully Elflein and Cook are the start of a new trend for Spielman.

khans2k5 wrote:I don't think slot will be a huge priority given how many 2 TE sets we run. We'll see with the new OC. I'd like to see them rotate Diggs and Thielen in that spot to give Treadwell more playing time. I'd be down to being Wright back as well and give him a little bit bigger role because he's been solid when he's out on the field. It's a good problem to have that Thielen and Diggs are top 20 WR's, but it does kind of kill the Treadwell pick. It'd be nice if our recent top picks were filling more needs rather than being the luxury picks they've been so far. Hopefully Elflein and Cook are the start of a new trend for Spielman.

I agree with you. Slot is the easiest spot tot fill in the league. So many players are good in the slot and alot of teams play a bigger player there also like you mentioned even TEs. If we only knew Thielen was gonna turn into a stud yeah they probably would have picked someone else other than Treadwell. Depending on who you talked to though Treadwell fell to them. There was far from a consensus on Treadwell (kinda the way it is with most WRs in the draft) but a number of people fans and "experts" thought he was gonna be a steal for the Vikings which hasn't been the case.

Which brings up something that bugs me and I guess should make me laugh. I hear from both fans and media about the Vikings blunders when drafting for need. Ponder, Troy Williamson, Patterson, Treadwell etc. What about need picks like Teddy, Harrison Smith, Kendricks, Cook, Rhodes? There are some damn good players in there and the Vikings absolutely needed players at those positions when they drafted them. Harrison Smith and Rhodes were guys Spielman traded up for. I absolutely agree that there have been draft blunders with drafting for need (Treadwell might be the latest, but I haven't given up on him) but it seems like its always talked about as a negative. No matter what you do the pick can turn out to not work out. Kalil was supposed to be at worst a solid LT for the next 10 years. He wasn't. Teddy looked like a great pick until his knee injury. Shariff Floyd was at worst a pretty nice although inconsistent player and then a freak botched surgery his career is over. Some guys (like some of the olineman they have picked) just don't end up being any good. The good franchises get it right more than others but its still a bit of a crapshoot aspect of it all. Spielman has made some decisions that look pretty good in the draft or got lucky. Some of them haven't looked good. Even the Pats miss sometimes.

Well that ends the possibility of Wright returning. That's a decent deal for him probably why he wasn't looking to take a pay cut.

https://twitter.com/rapsheet/status/975810715805274114?s=21

"Former #Vikings WR Jarius Wright is signing with the #Panthers, source said, on a 2-year deal. He gets a $2M signing bonus and the first year is worth up to $3.5M with incentives. ... Didn't take long to find a home."

monsterpile wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:I don't think slot will be a huge priority given how many 2 TE sets we run. We'll see with the new OC. I'd like to see them rotate Diggs and Thielen in that spot to give Treadwell more playing time. I'd be down to being Wright back as well and give him a little bit bigger role because he's been solid when he's out on the field. It's a good problem to have that Thielen and Diggs are top 20 WR's, but it does kind of kill the Treadwell pick. It'd be nice if our recent top picks were filling more needs rather than being the luxury picks they've been so far. Hopefully Elflein and Cook are the start of a new trend for Spielman.

I agree with you. Slot is the easiest spot tot fill in the league. So many players are good in the slot and alot of teams play a bigger player there also like you mentioned even TEs. If we only knew Thielen was gonna turn into a stud yeah they probably would have picked someone else other than Treadwell. Depending on who you talked to though Treadwell fell to them. There was far from a consensus on Treadwell (kinda the way it is with most WRs in the draft) but a number of people fans and "experts" thought he was gonna be a steal for the Vikings which hasn't been the case.

Which brings up something that bugs me and I guess should make me laugh. I hear from both fans and media about the Vikings blunders when drafting for need. Ponder, Troy Williamson, Patterson, Treadwell etc. What about need picks like Teddy, Harrison Smith, Kendricks, Cook, Rhodes? There are some damn good players in there and the Vikings absolutely needed players at those positions when they drafted them. Harrison Smith and Rhodes were guys Spielman traded up for. I absolutely agree that there have been draft blunders with drafting for need (Treadwell might be the latest, but I haven't given up on him) but it seems like its always talked about as a negative. No matter what you do the pick can turn out to not work out. Kalil was supposed to be at worst a solid LT for the next 10 years. He wasn't. Teddy looked like a great pick until his knee injury. Shariff Floyd was at worst a pretty nice although inconsistent player and then a freak botched surgery his career is over. Some guys (like some of the olineman they have picked) just don't end up being any good. The good franchises get it right more than others but its still a bit of a crapshoot aspect of it all. Spielman has made some decisions that look pretty good in the draft or got lucky. Some of them haven't looked good. Even the Pats miss sometimes.

He's landed some great players in the early rounds, but that's also why those misses stick out more. You can't miss on 1st and 2nd round picks because it just kills you. I actually think the bigger issue has actually just been no production from rounds 4-7 outside of Diggs and when your GM likes to get 10 picks a draft that's a problem (usually 6-7 out of the 10 come from those rounds). And at the end of the day surviving Ponder at all is an F'ing miracle because that was such a bad panic pick at the time and turned out to be a bad pick on the field as well. Not many GM's can survive that kind of blunder. I think he's been solid. The real test now comes with what this team turns into with Cousins getting that much money. It's gonna cost us some good players so he'll need to draft that much better to keep this team in contending status.

khans2k5 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:I don't think slot will be a huge priority given how many 2 TE sets we run. We'll see with the new OC. I'd like to see them rotate Diggs and Thielen in that spot to give Treadwell more playing time. I'd be down to being Wright back as well and give him a little bit bigger role because he's been solid when he's out on the field. It's a good problem to have that Thielen and Diggs are top 20 WR's, but it does kind of kill the Treadwell pick. It'd be nice if our recent top picks were filling more needs rather than being the luxury picks they've been so far. Hopefully Elflein and Cook are the start of a new trend for Spielman.

I agree with you. Slot is the easiest spot tot fill in the league. So many players are good in the slot and alot of teams play a bigger player there also like you mentioned even TEs. If we only knew Thielen was gonna turn into a stud yeah they probably would have picked someone else other than Treadwell. Depending on who you talked to though Treadwell fell to them. There was far from a consensus on Treadwell (kinda the way it is with most WRs in the draft) but a number of people fans and "experts" thought he was gonna be a steal for the Vikings which hasn't been the case.

Which brings up something that bugs me and I guess should make me laugh. I hear from both fans and media about the Vikings blunders when drafting for need. Ponder, Troy Williamson, Patterson, Treadwell etc. What about need picks like Teddy, Harrison Smith, Kendricks, Cook, Rhodes? There are some damn good players in there and the Vikings absolutely needed players at those positions when they drafted them. Harrison Smith and Rhodes were guys Spielman traded up for. I absolutely agree that there have been draft blunders with drafting for need (Treadwell might be the latest, but I haven't given up on him) but it seems like its always talked about as a negative. No matter what you do the pick can turn out to not work out. Kalil was supposed to be at worst a solid LT for the next 10 years. He wasn't. Teddy looked like a great pick until his knee injury. Shariff Floyd was at worst a pretty nice although inconsistent player and then a freak botched surgery his career is over. Some guys (like some of the olineman they have picked) just don't end up being any good. The good franchises get it right more than others but its still a bit of a crapshoot aspect of it all. Spielman has made some decisions that look pretty good in the draft or got lucky. Some of them haven't looked good. Even the Pats miss sometimes.

He's landed some great players in the early rounds, but that's also why those misses stick out more. You can't miss on 1st and 2nd round picks because it just kills you. I actually think the bigger issue has actually just been no production from rounds 4-7 outside of Diggs and when your GM likes to get 10 picks a draft that's a problem (usually 6-7 out of the 10 come from those rounds). And at the end of the day surviving Ponder at all is an F'ing miracle because that was such a bad panic pick at the time and turned out to be a bad pick on the field as well. Not many GM's can survive that kind of blunder. I think he's been solid. The real test now comes with what this team turns into with Cousins getting that much money. It's gonna cost us some good players so he'll need to draft that much better to keep this team in contending status.

I agree with most of what you said here. I think he survived that Ponder pick because I don't think he was the official final decision maker and the team has some legit talent on it.

One of the best moves he ever made was adding Linval Joseph that year they hired Zimmer coming off one of the worst defensive seasons in NFL history. What I like about Spielman is it seems he and Zimmer tend to like the same type of guys and it's paid off quite a bit at least on the defensive side of the ball. If they can start having an offensive staff that can develop some talent more like what Zimmer has done defensively then we could be a really good team for a long time. AP was a blessing and a curse for a few years but when healthy he was absolutely worth the trouble. If Cook is the all around back he looks to be and he can stay healthy. Well it's gonna be fun times the next few years because the Vikings have receivers and a QB that can take advantage of that. Hopefully we can keep building that oline. That's was probably as much of a failure as anything for Spielman besides the Ponder pick.

You are right they need to keep drafting and finding cheap young players to keep this thing rolling. They certainly have been more aggressive trying to add young players especially undrafted guys paying as much as they can to get guys they really want. Honestly I feel about as good about the QBs onnthis roster as I have for a while with Cousins Siemian and Sloter. That's sorta feels weird to say right?

monsterpile wrote:
You are right they need to keep drafting and finding cheap young players to keep this thing rolling. They certainly have been more aggressive trying to add young players especially undrafted guys paying as much as they can to get guys they really want. Honestly I feel about as good about the QBs on this roster as I have for a while with Cousins Siemian and Sloter. That's sorta feels weird to say right?

Agreed. This draft will be huge for us. We need to fine 2-3 contributors next year to be true SB contenders.

And yes I feel good about QB position. In 2017 we spent about 22.5M on QBs. In 2018 we are going to spend about 26.5M. Not that huge of a jump considering.