If you’ve been reading offseason content about the Vikings so far, you might think the outlook for next season isn’t great.
Minnesota has a glaring problem with the salary cap. It seems as though the team will have to cut some veteran talent. A star receiver on the team is acting suspicious on social media. And Minnesota’s starting quarterback, Kirk Cousins, has a contract that’s a $31-million-dollar hit to next season’s cap space.
It seems like nothing is going right for the team, but let me remind you: it’s March. There’s a lot of offseason left.
The Vikings are coming off a year where they won a playoff game, and their quarterback improved in leaps and bounds from the season before.
Minnesota showed that it has the pieces and depth to compete against pretty good teams in the NFL. Sure, the next Patrick Mahomes probably isn’t going to just walk through the door. But the Vikings still have a number of pieces, all the team needs to do is make them fit.
Minnesota can restructure players like Riley Reiff and Linval Joseph. The team could let the lackluster, high-paid talent walk, and then keep players who can still contribute and start like Reiff and Joseph. That would lessen the cap hit significantly, enough to bring back a player like Everson Griffen.
The Vikings aren’t in a perfect spot in the draft, but their first round pick will still suffice to a player who can become an instant starter. The team could draft a tackle in the first round, even if Reiff is still on the team, and then move Reiff to guard. It could also take a cornerback in the first round, where they could find a talented athlete like Trevon Diggs or CJ Henderson.
The team might not re-sign Trae Waynes or Anthony Harris, but the Vikings will still have enough talent on defense. They could take a safety to replace Harris, and Waynes hasn’t always looked to be a starting-caliber cornerback, anyways.
Not re-signing Harris would give Minnesota enough money to find a defensive tackle in free agency, or maybe a corner if the Vikings don’t like the talent in the draft. The defense won’t drop off a cliff in terms of production if Harris leaves.
Mike Zimmer has said that safety probably isn’t the most important position on the defense, and it’s hard to say whether Harris’ stellar year was a sign of more to come or a flash in the pan. Offenses will definitely be more mindful of Harris next season, knowing what he did with the Vikings in 2019-20.
Both Cousins and Jimmy Garoppolo are known to be game managers. Vikings fans shouldn’t look at the Chiefs and think that Cousins would do as well with that team as Mahomes would, that’s ridiculous. What they should ask is this: Could Cousins take a team like the 49ers to a Super Bowl? I think the answer is yes. The 49ers defense is better than the Vikings, but if Minnesota can check some boxes in the secondary and add a talented rookie or free agent at cornerback, the Vikings could look a lot better defensively.
The narrative surrounding Cousins is that he can’t win the biggest games, but Chiefs coach Andy Reid proved this season that narratives can change in an instant. Reid was always known as a solid coach who could not take a team to a title, but that all changed when he did it with the Chiefs.
The narrative almost didn’t change, though, because the 49ers had stifled the Chiefs offense for much of the game. I think if that game is played 10 times, the 49ers could win four. You never know how a Super Bowl is going to play out, but the 49ers are still set up for long-term success and a quarterback who manages games well. I wouldn’t be shocked if they won a Super Bowl in the next several years.
That could be the Vikings, too. They just have to make some moves in the offseason.