Interesting take on Reiff & Cleveland

[Guest]

@Jor-El said:

@"Geoff Nichols" said:
I think the best thing about Ezra right now, is you have flexibility. I don't think Ezra and Reiff are the only two pieces as part of the equation as well. I think you need to look at all of your holes and figure out how to fix them. That goes all the way to our need at DT, S, DE, and LG.

I think the sum of the parts can be equally as beneficial with or without Reiff depending on how they use his money. But I wouldn't sleep on them moving O'Neill to LT. Everyone assumes it would be Ezra but I would say there is an equal chance they consider O'Neill at LT. 

Does the team think Udoh could play RT? That would seem to be a factor in the idea of moving O'Neill to LT. Or will they let Hill leave in free agency and count on Udoh as their swing tackle?

If we knew what we had in Udoh and gave him more time on the field, this could make a lot of sense.  Then you aren't in a NEED to upgrade OG if the OL was: O'Neil-Reiff-Bradburry-Cleveland-Udoh
That right there to me, if Udoh can be the guy we saw in his one start, is the best OL combo we are going to get and allows us to take 14 and either draft the best falling stud (Wilson, Lance, Surtain, a WR) or be flexible and add a DL after sliding down and grabbing more picks.
Start Udoh, give me Lance at 14, use the rest of the picks and FA to address UT, S, WR, DE.
I believe with another impact rookie class like last year, like 2015, this team could have re-set itself at every level and potentially QB.

[Guest]

@Skodin said:

@Jor-El said:

@"Geoff Nichols" said:
I think the best thing about Ezra right now, is you have flexibility. I don't think Ezra and Reiff are the only two pieces as part of the equation as well. I think you need to look at all of your holes and figure out how to fix them. That goes all the way to our need at DT, S, DE, and LG.

I think the sum of the parts can be equally as beneficial with or without Reiff depending on how they use his money. But I wouldn't sleep on them moving O'Neill to LT. Everyone assumes it would be Ezra but I would say there is an equal chance they consider O'Neill at LT. 

Does the team think Udoh could play RT? That would seem to be a factor in the idea of moving O'Neill to LT. Or will they let Hill leave in free agency and count on Udoh as their swing tackle?

If we knew what we had in Udoh and gave him more time on the field, this could make a lot of sense.  Then you aren't in a NEED to upgrade OG if the OL was: O'Neil-Reiff-Bradburry-Cleveland-Udoh
That right there to me, if Udoh can be the guy we saw in his one start, is the best OL combo we are going to get and allows us to take 14 and either draft the best falling stud (Wilson, Lance, Surtain, a WR) or be flexible and add a DL after sliding down and grabbing more picks.
Start Udoh, give me Lance at 14, use the rest of the picks and FA to address UT, S, WR, DE.
I believe with another impact rookie class like last year, like 2015, this team could have re-set itself at every level and potentially QB.

But we didn't give Udoh ANY playing time this year, even in the Detroit game. Was that because he is deemed incapable...or did someone need a minimum of 7 wins to keep his job??

The other problem is right there in your last sentence: impact drafts in 2015 and 2020. The next strong Vikings draft is due in 2025. Every year in between, we only get 1 starter (except 2016 - zero).

[Guest]

@Jor-El said:

@"Geoff Nichols" said:
I think the best thing about Ezra right now, is you have flexibility. I don't think Ezra and Reiff are the only two pieces as part of the equation as well. I think you need to look at all of your holes and figure out how to fix them. That goes all the way to our need at DT, S, DE, and LG.

I think the sum of the parts can be equally as beneficial with or without Reiff depending on how they use his money. But I wouldn't sleep on them moving O'Neill to LT. Everyone assumes it would be Ezra but I would say there is an equal chance they consider O'Neill at LT. 

Does the team think Udoh could play RT? That would seem to be a factor in the idea of moving O'Neill to LT. Or will they let Hill leave in free agency and count on Udoh as their swing tackle?

Maybe. I think he's probably more of a swing tackle if Hill walk in free agency. 

[Guest]

@MarkSP18 said:

@MaroonBells said:
The Vikings have enough contract flexibility (release, restructure) in their higher paid players (Rudy, Harry, Barr, etc) to keep Reiff if they want to. So I think the decision to extend him, trade him or release him pivots on what they decide to do with Danielle Hunter.

Hunter is under contract until 2024, so an argument can be made to say, "hey, you missed a year, get out there and prove you're healthy and we'll look at your contract in '22." An argument can also be made that he's woefully underpaid--ranking 18th among the highest paid DEs, when he's very clearly a top 5 guy in terms of performance.

I tend to believe that Cleveland would be pretty good out at LT, so if they decide to give Hunter a new deal, they pretty much have to remove Reiff from the cap. And IF they do that, then our pick at #14 is much more likely to be an OL.

Just some things I think I think. 

The Vikings gave Hunter the early extension in July of 2018 and he went out and got 14.5 sacks in both of the next two years before getting hurt this year.

They can and should extend him now before it gets even more expensive.

Here is an example contract redo/extension ...

He currently has 3 mil in prorated signing bonus that counts against the cap in 2021 & 2022.
He currently has 2 mil in restructured salary that counts against the cap in 2021, 2022, & 2023.
His current cap hits are 17.75, 17, & 14 mil.

Give him a 5 yr 100 mil deal with a 25 mil signing bonus.
His salaries would be 7, 8, 20, 20, & 20 mil.
His cap hits would be 17, 18, 27, 25, & 25 mil.
Include incentives to give him more based on production.

In 2023, if they wanted to move on from him they would eat 17 mil in deal money but save 10 mil in cap space.
If he is doing well, as I suspect he will be, then they can restructure his deal to gain cap space if necessary.

This sample deal actually lowers his 2021 cap hit by 750K and raises it by 1 mil in 2022 and by 13 mil in 2023.

In 2023, they could be free of a huge QB cap hit.

If I am running the Vikings, this is the deal I would propose.

Something like that makes some sense. Unfortunately there is no way Danielle's agent will add 5 years and I think the price tag will be over $100M. But like you infer, the Vikings need to get something in return or they can simply say they aren't discussing an extension. The unwritten part of this story is the fact the team told him to wait until this year to re-do his deal prior to his injury. So its kind of the awkward spot of the Vikings promising and the situation changing. So I think something probably gets worked out, but I don't think its necessarily going to be the most team friendly deal of all time. 

Danielle won't get his fair market value given the situation but on the open market I wouldn't be shocked to see him get $25M/yr. So I think the middle ground will probably need to be more like $23.5M/yr. They can manipulate the cap hits like you do in the above example for 2021/22 but I don't think it would be so extreme since the salary guarantee will end up biting them if they don't move through that rather quickly.