Minnesota Sports Forum

bleedspeed177 wrote:Monster - Think 2 years out.

How do you replace Thelien, Smith, Kendricks, Barr, Harris, Rieff, and others over the next 2 years as all will be 30 or way over? Then you have to address the QB position and Cook might be nearing the end of his best years.

It is a lot of holes to fill. Draft capital is the best way to rebuild a team. I am a fan of what the Browns and Dolphins did. I think we should go that route.

Some will get replaced by picks and others by free agents. Those are all the highest contracted players on the team outside of Kirk. When they are gone they take big salaries with them to be replaced. Picks and cap space are more than enough to rebuild this team on the fly without needing a full tank and rebuild.

Cooks contract really kicks in around 2022. O'Neill will need a good payday then too. The good part of tanking is you can rollover cap space in the NFL. The Browns really took advantage of that. It becomes important when resigning guys and keeping a core together you can pay them upfront and then add the pieces you need when your window opens.

We can get under the cap by about $9M in 2021 by cutting Barr, Rudolph, Stephen, and Bailey. That would put us at 73M under in 2022. If we go the 2-year rebuild route we could try and roll over most of that into 2023 where we can lock in guys that will be free agents in 2024.

bleedspeed177 wrote:

khans2k5 wrote:

At the end of the day trading Jefferson for someone unproven who will cost more (5th pick in your example costs basically double what Jefferson cost) and hope they can match his production (let alone surpass it) just to pick up an extra pick is just jumping through too many hoops to try to improve the team. That's just not the right spot to try to squeeze out extra value to build the team.

You are probably right, but think we would have to look at every option. I don't think Justin Jefferson would bring enough in return to make it worth it. I am one that feels Justin Jefferson's value is a little high right now and he might be one of those good guys on a bad team that we experience with the Wolves. He is not a Randy Moss-type talent that leads his team to 6 game improvement and 15-1 record while scoring the most TD's in the league that is for sure. He seems to be more of an AC or CC type WR that will make his mark via longevity over domination. It really is interesting how much more offensive the league has gotten since 1998.

Your takes on Jefferson are so bizarre. Might as well trade him because he is only a Chris Carter HOF type. Randy Moss is do good he is responsible for a 6 game improvement his rookie year...but it's not about 1 player. The target is always moving.

The reason this team wasn't good enough was the defense lost talent due to FA and injury and Pierce opting out.

One thing to consider is sometimes guys over 30 stay very good for a number of years. I'm with you in looking to replace those guys but it's not certain that we have to.

I hear Griffen is indicating on social media he really wants back. I'm honestly not sure how good he is but I'm sure he would help playing in Zimmer's system. I'd like him back if it was cheap. Maybe throw in some performance incentives so if he does well he gets a decent chunk of money. Even if he was a part time player he would likely be an upgrade over what we had this year. I'd guess he would help some against the run over what we put out there this year which was a problem also.

If they brought Griffen back that certainly doesn't mean they shouldn't be looking at another pass rusher in the draft but it might help bridge the gap for the young guys they tend to be good at developing.

monsterpile wrote:
Your takes on Jefferson are so bizarre. Might as well trade him because he is only a Chris Carter HOF type. Randy Moss is do good he is responsible for a 6 game improvement his rookie year...but it's not about 1 player. The target is always moving.

I said I would be open to trading him if you think you can get a haul for him and I don't look at him as a generational talent that many homers do. One player doesn't make a team, but when we added Moss the passing game exploded adding 1000 yards passing and 6 wins over a team they basically didn't change. It happened again with the Patriots when he arrived in 2007 and they added 1300 yards passing and 4 wins. Moss is in the Lawerence Taylor, Deion Sanders, Mahomes, type category. Jefferson is a nice player, but not in that category. The Packers won't be looking to draft players to stop him.

monsterpile wrote:I hear Griffen is indicating on social media he really wants back. I'm honestly not sure how good he is but I'm sure he would help playing in Zimmer's system. I'd like him back if it was cheap. Maybe throw in some performance incentives so if he does well he gets a decent chunk of money. Even if he was a part-time player he would likely be an upgrade over what we had this year. I'd guess he would help some against the run over what we put out there this year which was a problem also.

If they brought Griffen back that certainly doesn't mean they shouldn't be looking at another pass rusher in the draft but it might help bridge the gap for the young guys they tend to be good at developing.

He would have been our best pass rusher last year for what that is worth. If the asking price is right he would be a good addition for play and locker room. We will have a lot of tough decisions to make this year. I think we should do our best to keep Rieff around another year.

bleedspeed177 wrote:

monsterpile wrote:
Your takes on Jefferson are so bizarre. Might as well trade him because he is only a Chris Carter HOF type. Randy Moss is do good he is responsible for a 6 game improvement his rookie year...but it's not about 1 player. The target is always moving.

I said I would be open to trading him if you think you can get a haul for him and I don't look at him as a generational talent that many homers do. One player doesn't make a team, but when we added Moss the passing game exploded adding 1000 yards passing and 6 wins over a team they basically didn't change. It happened again with the Patriots when he arrived in 2007 and they added 1300 yards passing and 4 wins. Moss is in the Lawerence Taylor, Deion Sanders, Mahomes, type category. Jefferson is a nice player, but not in that category. The Packers won't be looking to draft players to stop him.

Who exactly has called him a generational talent?

Jefferson runs better routes and catches over the middle better then Moss ever did. Moss was by far the greatest home run threat ever, that is not arguable. Moss might even have a greater impact on winning since he forced teams into two deep and still ran by them. You can't argue with the production Jefferson had though, with that overpriced bum QB too. LOL

WolvesFan21 wrote:Jefferson runs better routes and catches over the middle better then Moss ever did. Moss was by far the greatest home run threat ever, that is not arguable. Moss might even have a greater impact on winning since he forced teams into two deep and still ran by them. You can't argue with the production Jefferson had though, with that overpriced bum QB too. LOL

Moss had plenty of faults as a WR, but running down the deep ball was not one of them.

-Justin Jefferson and Danielle Hunter are our 2 untouchable players if I'm the GM, both have HOF type ability, and both are young and at key positions. The only way I even consider trading either of those guys is if I'm getting the #1 pick (mostly because I'm convinced that this year's top QB (Trever Lawrence) is the real deal and has HOF type talent at the QB position, and even though he's unproven at the NFL level, he's the one guy since Andrew Luck which I'd be willing to pull that trigger for (and Luck would have likely worked out had he not went down so much with injury).

-Big "no" on Griff. Not only has his play dropped off a cliff, but he literally called out our starting quarterback. The last thing the Vikings need is internal players who can't control their mouths when it comes to the QB position, especially when that player isn't the player he once was. Had he not stuck his foot in his mouth, I would have been happy for the Vikes to consider him on a vet minimum type deal, but we're beyond that point now that his Twitter fingers have spoken.