Overpaying Quarterbacks:
Less than two weeks ago, the Dallas Cowboys made Dak Prescott the highest-paid quarterback in NFL history. Prescott’s deal will pay the Cowboys’ signal caller 240 million dollars over 4 years. Whenever I see a quarterback receive a mega contract, I wonder what assets the team could have brought in with those resources. Would it have been worth finding a cheap replacement and building around him instead of financially handcuffing the team for the foreseeable future?
The Houston Texans’ situation has shown us how great of a roster a team can build when they have quality quarterback play at a low cost. CJ Stroud's performance at a high level on his rookie contract allowed Houston to bring in Stefon Diggs, Joe Mixon, and Danielle Hunter this offseason. On the other hand, the New York Giants’ situation has shown us how destructive overpaying the quarterback can be for the rest of the roster. Daniel Jones’ large contract forced the Giants to let the key to their offense, Saquon Barkley, walk in free agency. In addition, these quarterbacks are prone to injuries. In 2023, immediately after signing a 5-year 275-million-dollar deal, Joe Burrow missed the majority of the season with multiple injuries. This season, in his second game after signing a 4-year 212-million-dollar deal, Tua Tagovailoa suffered the 4th concussion of his career. There’s no doubt that the few quarterbacks who make their teams instant Super Bowl contenders, such as Mahomes and Burrow, are worth paying. However, aside from those few, would teams be better off replacing stars instead of handing out massive contracts?
“Take Someone Else’s Money”:
Apparently, that question is more than just a hypothetical scenario. There’s one team that has been using this philosophy for years, and not exclusively at the quarterback position. The Minnesota Vikings have built a reputation of grooming players into stars, and then replacing them. They’ve told their players time and time again that they have no issue replacing them and letting them take someone else’s money.
First, they did it with Latavius Murray following the 2018 season. Minnesota let the veteran running back walk in free agency and he signed a 4-year 14.5-million-dollar deal with the New Orleans Saints. Two years prior, the Vikings had thought ahead by drafting a running back named Dalvin Cook in the second round and signed him to a 4-year 6-million-dollar deal. Minnesota went a step further with Stefon Diggs in 2020. Instead of paying him themselves, they traded Diggs to the Buffalo Bills for picks in the first round, fourth round, fifth round, and sixth round of the draft. The Bills signed Diggs to a 4-year 96-million-dollar deal. Meanwhile, the Vikings used the first-round pick to replace Diggs with a receiver named Justin Jefferson and signed him to a 4-year 13-million-dollar rookie contract. Two years later, instead of giving Adam Thielen a large deal, Minnesota cut the veteran receiver. Thielen went on to sign a 3-year 25-million-dollar deal with the Carolina Panthers. Meanwhile, the Vikings replaced him in the first round of the draft with a receiver named Jordan Addison and signed him to a 4-year 14-million-dollar deal. Between the three players, in the two years following their new contracts, they put up 5,554 scrimmage yards and 33 touchdowns. In those same seasons, their replacements put up 7,552 scrimmage yards (1,998 more) and 57 touchdowns (24 more). All of that while the replacements were 27.7 million dollars cheaper every year.
Minnesota’s 2024 Offseason:
Following a disappointing 2023 season, this past offseason, the Vikings did it twice more. This time, bolder and riskier than ever. The Vikings let Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter walk in free agency. Cousins signed a 4-year 180-million-dollar deal with the Atlanta Falcons, and Hunter signed a 2-year 49-million-dollar deal with the Houston Texans. To replace Cousins and Hunter, the Vikings gave up a few late-round picks to move up from picks 11 and 23 to picks 10 and 17. With the 10th pick, Minnesota replaced Cousins with JJ McCarthy and signed him to a 4-year 22-million-dollar rookie deal. With the 17th pick, the Vikings replaced Hunter with Dallas Turner and signed him to a 4-year 16-million-dollar rookie year. Each year, the Vikings will spend 60 million dollars less than they would’ve had they resigned Cousins and Hunter.
After saving 60 million dollars, the Vikings were 85 million dollars under the salary cap. However, the Vikings didn’t pocket the money they had saved. As we said earlier, the one-in-a-million talents are worth the large contracts. Therefore the Vikings used 35 million dollars (yearly) to lock up Justin Jefferson through 2028. With the remaining 25 million dollars, the Vikings patched up their defense. In 2023, the Vikings ranked 16th in yards against. This past offseason, they signed Stefon Gillmore, Jonathan Greendard, Shaquill Griffin, Blake Cashman, and Andrew Van Ginkel, to contracts worth a total of 48 million dollars per year. Between their draft class and their signings, Minnesota brought in 6 high-end starters on the defensive side of the ball in one offseason.
The genius of general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and his staff didn’t stop there. They parted ways with a few veterans on the offensive side of the ball, including Alexander Mattison and Josh Dobbs, clearing up another 15 million dollars in cap space. With said 15 million dollars, the Vikings signed Aaron Jones and Sam Darnold. While, Jones was a very logical signing, the signing of Darnold raised some questions. The Vikings had just drafted McCarthy and Sam Darnold has struggled with multiple teams throughout his career. However, young quarterbacks tend to do better when they sit and learn during their rookie year. In addition, the way Darnold has responded to different coaches, different systems, and different supporting casts, suggests that he might be able to find success in a favorable environment (I discussed it in detail in an article written right after the signing, click here). The Vikings were able to recognize this untapped potential and signed a potentially great quarterback for pennies on the dollar.
Results:
While stats and cap space are nice, the ultimate question is results. Have the Vikings been a successful team? Since starting this custom in 2018 by moving on from Murray, until this past offseason, the Vikings have a 45W-38L record. While winning 54% of their games does make them better than an average team, they have only won a singular playoff game in that span. Hence, the answer is that the results have been underwhelming, so far.
Nonetheless, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and his staff only took over before the 2022 season. 3 of the 5 replacements have been done recently, under their management. In their first year, they went 13W-4L. Due to injuries to both Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson, I don’t believe it’s fair to judge the latter half of their second. Hence, they should be seen as 17W-8L, with a 0W-1L playoff record. Since most of their work was done this past offseason, the true test is the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
So far, they couldn’t have possibly gotten off to a better start. While the sample size is small, the results are promising. Their new and improved defense held the Giants to 6 points in week 1 and dominated the reigning NFC champion, the San Francisco 49ers, in week 2. Even after letting go of Danielle Hunter, their sack leader from a year ago, the Vikings’ defense leads the NFL with 11 sacks. On the offensive side of the ball, Sam Darnold has been everything they possibly imagined. After entering the season with a career passer rating under 80, Darnold’s rating is at 111.7 after two weeks. Darnold played an incredibly efficient game against the 49ers’ top-ranked defense, including a brilliant 26-yard pass to Jalen Nailor on 3rd and long to set up Aaron Jones’ game-clinching touchdown. Meanwhile, Kirk Cousins has struggled under his new 180-million-dollar deal. He entered the year with a career passer rating right around 100 and averaging over 2 touchdowns per game. Through his first two games of 2024, Cousins has a passer rating of 89.7 and has scored 1.5 touchdowns per game. The fact that the Vikings are getting better play from a quarterback who they’re paying 40 million dollars less is genius.
Even though results haven’t magically appeared overnight, I believe that the Minnesota Vikings have found something. The NFL salary cap is currently 255 million dollars. At the same time, 16 teams, exactly half of the NFL, are paying their starting quarterback 40 million dollars or more. If the Vikings can continue to find ways to get good production from a quarterback paid 5-10 million dollars, they will have an advantage of over 30 million dollars toward building the rest of their roster. That’s only at quarterback, not to mention the moves they’ve made at receiver, running back, and pass rusher. If the Vikings can continue to make their replacement strategy work, they should have the deepest, most well-rounded rosters for years to come.
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