Vikings entering crunch time re salary cap...

[purplefaithful]

They are projected to have around $5 million in salary cap space to start the 2019 league year, putting it among the NFL clubs with the least money to spend once free agency starts March 11. The Vikings can remedy the problem by trading, releasing or attempting to restructure the contracts of several veterans, but such moves can come with a cost.
If the Vikings are forced to part with seasoned defenders such as Griffen or if they lose players such as Barr or defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson in free agency, they will count on the development of players such as linebacker Eric Wilson and defensive end Stephen Weatherly to help close the gaps. While Zimmer sounded hopeful last week the Vikings could keep their defense intact, he also acknowledged the Vikings’ financial constraints.
“Anthony was my No. 1 pick as a head coach, right?” he said Thursday. “I love him as far as the things he does for the organization, the football team. It’s just really going to depend on where the numbers go. And really the same thing with Sheldon. ... But the way it is with the cap, we have to budget where we’re going. So if it goes to, if Barr gets paid $18 million, it probably ain’t going to happen, you know? But if it’s a reasonable deal, and I think Anthony would love to be here, too.”
But in this stage of an NFL roster’s life cycle — with a high-priced quarterback and veteran contracts galore — the Vikings might have to adapt to the fact they can’t always get what they want.


http://www.startribune.com/mike-zimmer-s...506614472/

[Guest]

It gets tiresome to keep hearing about Cousins' contract.  I suppose that he is "overpaid"... but by the time his contract expires, I'm guessing he'll be middle of the pack.  To me, the biggest "dead weights" (which doesn't mean I don't love the guys... it's just that they are not worth what we're paying them... or what they will soon ask for) are:

• Griffin (still good... but hurt the last couple years; if he was willing to re-structure for a lower cap number, that'd be OK)
• Our CB's (the 2 of them are among the top 10 salaries on our team and we have younger, cheaper players available)
• Rudolph (we don't really use our TE's much... and I don't know that there's anything that he does that Man-Bun couldn't do- if given the chance)
• Remmers / Sendejo (I think they both get cut, freeing up $11+ million
• Laquon (no comment necessary... other than I'm not sure that cutting him would free up much money; not sure how is contract is structured)  According to this website (which is pretty cool), it wouldn't save us anything to cut him (other than a roster space): https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/tools/roster...a-vikings/

Everyone else (that isn't a main contributor) is making less than $1 million.

According to the previously cited website, if we trade EG and cut Rudolph, Remmers and Sendejo: that leaves us with over $33 million in cap space.  Assuming that we let Barr walk, that means we need to get a hybrid LB... another TE... and depth at DE.  We already have a starting safety in Harris.  To me, that gives us room to get a FA OL... and a few other pieces (DL?  WR?  LB depth?)