If Ant AND Mack go, we officially have 1 returning starter in our defensive backfield...yeesh....
Quote: @FSUVike said:
@"Geoff Nichols" said:
@ Havoc1649 said:
Sendejo is not good. I wanted Ant to replace him long before he did and I’m still not happy with Zimmer on that. I wouldn’t dream of moving Ant for anything less than a 2nd. Safeties can play at a high level well into their mid-30’s. A player at the position can absorb a bit of speed drop off with experience. Play recognition/awareness are by far the most important attributes for the position and can make up for a lot. A high awareness guy now running a 4.7 can beat a fresh 4.4 youngster to the ball all day long.
If no one offered a commensurate player or a 2nd round minimum, I’d just keep him. He’s a couple of W’s during a season. It’s not just the pick production, he locks his guy down in coverage and most importantly to me, and why Sendejo has never been a player I’m high on, he doesn’t miss tackles.
I think that Ant's talent is likely only a small portion of the discussion at this point. Its important to have good safeties, but its a position with diminishing returns. You are never going to get production out of the position equal to $20M+ of cap space. Ant is worth the money but you have to choose either him or Harry. They aren't going to move Harry, he's still the best safety in the game.
The nice thing about safety is that you can plug a solid yet unspectacular player next to Harrison and still have the leagues best defense. Sendejo proved that.
He only proved that when Minnesota was playing predominantly Man and had a lockdown CB in Rhode , an up and coming CB in Waynes and a dominant run-stuffer in Joseph. Last year all 3 were meh to bad, while Harris balled out, which allowed Harry to stay near the LOS.
Smith isn't as good in coverage as he used to be. He was trailing off even during the blowout in the NFCCG. If Harris leaves you can't put Sendejo back there. 'Helping' Rhodes and Waynes when they were playing well, and I used quotes for a reason, and helping Hughes, Hill, Rookie, hopefully a vet and Boyd is not at all the same Job Description.
I'm not advocating to resign Sendejo. But I think a solid rookie likely can have the same impact. The point is if they can save $8-9M on Harris they can end up with two other players on the defensive side of the ball and they won't be all that worse.
Quote: @prairieghost said:
If Ant AND Mack go, we officially have 1 returning starter in our defensive backfield...yeesh....
Hill and Hughes have both started games and have looked good though. That is a good thing.
Quote: @Canthony said:
@ prairieghost said:
If Ant AND Mack go, we officially have 1 returning starter in our defensive backfield...yeesh....
Hill and Hughes have both started games and have looked good though. That is a good thing.
Is Hughes neck still a question mark?
Quote: @JimmyinSD said:
@ Canthony said:
@ prairieghost said:
If Ant AND Mack go, we officially have 1 returning starter in our defensive backfield...yeesh....
Hill and Hughes have both started games and have looked good though. That is a good thing.
Is Hughes neck still a question mark?
That is the wild card part of it. I haven't heard anything of the sort and I would assume we wouldnt be letting Mac and Waynes if it were a major issue.
Quote: @Canthony said:
@ JimmyinSD said:
@ Canthony said:
@ prairieghost said:
If Ant AND Mack go, we officially have 1 returning starter in our defensive backfield...yeesh....
Hill and Hughes have both started games and have looked good though. That is a good thing.
Is Hughes neck still a question mark?
That is the wild card part of it. I haven't heard anything of the sort and I would assume we wouldnt be letting Mac and Waynes if it were a major issue.
well they dont really have a choice, they already used their tag and they dont have the cap space to outbid anybody. I have heard that he "will" be ok, but honestly I heard that for 2 years about Shariff Floyd and we know how that turned out.
Quote: @"Geoff Nichols" said:
@ FSUVike said:
@"Geoff Nichols" said:
@ Havoc1649 said:
Sendejo is not good. I wanted Ant to replace him long before he did and I’m still not happy with Zimmer on that. I wouldn’t dream of moving Ant for anything less than a 2nd. Safeties can play at a high level well into their mid-30’s. A player at the position can absorb a bit of speed drop off with experience. Play recognition/awareness are by far the most important attributes for the position and can make up for a lot. A high awareness guy now running a 4.7 can beat a fresh 4.4 youngster to the ball all day long.
If no one offered a commensurate player or a 2nd round minimum, I’d just keep him. He’s a couple of W’s during a season. It’s not just the pick production, he locks his guy down in coverage and most importantly to me, and why Sendejo has never been a player I’m high on, he doesn’t miss tackles.
I think that Ant's talent is likely only a small portion of the discussion at this point. Its important to have good safeties, but its a position with diminishing returns. You are never going to get production out of the position equal to $20M+ of cap space. Ant is worth the money but you have to choose either him or Harry. They aren't going to move Harry, he's still the best safety in the game.
The nice thing about safety is that you can plug a solid yet unspectacular player next to Harrison and still have the leagues best defense. Sendejo proved that.
He only proved that when Minnesota was playing predominantly Man and had a lockdown CB in Rhode , an up and coming CB in Waynes and a dominant run-stuffer in Joseph. Last year all 3 were meh to bad, while Harris balled out, which allowed Harry to stay near the LOS.
Smith isn't as good in coverage as he used to be. He was trailing off even during the blowout in the NFCCG. If Harris leaves you can't put Sendejo back there. 'Helping' Rhodes and Waynes when they were playing well, and I used quotes for a reason, and helping Hughes, Hill, Rookie, hopefully a vet and Boyd is not at all the same Job Description.
I'm not advocating to resign Sendejo. But I think a solid rookie likely can have the same impact. The point is if they can save $8-9M on Harris they can end up with two other players on the defensive side of the ball and they won't be all that worse.
I agree with the notion that for less money you can play a lesser player at Safety and the decline isn't THAT much. The problem is, we're already almost certainly declining at CB, DT, and maybe even DE. All of these things taken individually are palatable. But combined, the Vikings could really struggle on defense, especially early in the season.
Going into this offseason I expected RS/Brez to somehow work it out with restructures, etc, like they always do. And the Vikings would retain most of the vets. I was wrong. This defense is going to be unrecognizable.
I just made the argument for keeping Harris, but this same exact reasoning could be used to say, "well if the defense is gonna stink anyways, trade him".
Quote:
Quote: @JimmyinSD said:
@ Canthony said:
@ JimmyinSD said:
@ Canthony said:
@ prairieghost said:
If Ant AND Mack go, we officially have 1 returning starter in our defensive backfield...yeesh....
Hill and Hughes have both started games and have looked good though. That is a good thing.
Is Hughes neck still a question mark?
That is the wild card part of it. I haven't heard anything of the sort and I would assume we wouldnt be letting Mac and Waynes if it were a major issue.
well they dont really have a choice, they already used their tag and they dont have the cap space to outbid anybody. I have heard that he "will" be ok, but honestly I heard that for 2 years about Shariff Floyd and we know how that turned out.
Lets not talk about the Floyd situation. I believe we could bring back Mac. He just wants to test the market.
Quote: @Canthony said:
Quote: @JimmyinSD said:
@ Canthony said:
@ JimmyinSD said:
@ Canthony said:
@ prairieghost said:
If Ant AND Mack go, we officially have 1 returning starter in our defensive backfield...yeesh....
Hill and Hughes have both started games and have looked good though. That is a good thing.
Is Hughes neck still a question mark?
That is the wild card part of it. I haven't heard anything of the sort and I would assume we wouldnt be letting Mac and Waynes if it were a major issue.
well they dont really have a choice, they already used their tag and they dont have the cap space to outbid anybody. I have heard that he "will" be ok, but honestly I heard that for 2 years about Shariff Floyd and we know how that turned out.
Lets not talk about the Floyd situation. I believe we could bring back Mac. He just wants to test the market.
but if there is a bidding war.... Mac is gone as well IMO.
Quote: @pattersaur said:
@"Geoff Nichols" said:
@ FSUVike said:
@"Geoff Nichols" said:
@ Havoc1649 said:
Sendejo is not good. I wanted Ant to replace him long before he did and I’m still not happy with Zimmer on that. I wouldn’t dream of moving Ant for anything less than a 2nd. Safeties can play at a high level well into their mid-30’s. A player at the position can absorb a bit of speed drop off with experience. Play recognition/awareness are by far the most important attributes for the position and can make up for a lot. A high awareness guy now running a 4.7 can beat a fresh 4.4 youngster to the ball all day long.
If no one offered a commensurate player or a 2nd round minimum, I’d just keep him. He’s a couple of W’s during a season. It’s not just the pick production, he locks his guy down in coverage and most importantly to me, and why Sendejo has never been a player I’m high on, he doesn’t miss tackles.
I think that Ant's talent is likely only a small portion of the discussion at this point. Its important to have good safeties, but its a position with diminishing returns. You are never going to get production out of the position equal to $20M+ of cap space. Ant is worth the money but you have to choose either him or Harry. They aren't going to move Harry, he's still the best safety in the game.
The nice thing about safety is that you can plug a solid yet unspectacular player next to Harrison and still have the leagues best defense. Sendejo proved that.
He only proved that when Minnesota was playing predominantly Man and had a lockdown CB in Rhode , an up and coming CB in Waynes and a dominant run-stuffer in Joseph. Last year all 3 were meh to bad, while Harris balled out, which allowed Harry to stay near the LOS.
Smith isn't as good in coverage as he used to be. He was trailing off even during the blowout in the NFCCG. If Harris leaves you can't put Sendejo back there. 'Helping' Rhodes and Waynes when they were playing well, and I used quotes for a reason, and helping Hughes, Hill, Rookie, hopefully a vet and Boyd is not at all the same Job Description.
I'm not advocating to resign Sendejo. But I think a solid rookie likely can have the same impact. The point is if they can save $8-9M on Harris they can end up with two other players on the defensive side of the ball and they won't be all that worse.
I agree with the notion that for less money you can play a lesser player at Safety and the decline isn't THAT much. The problem is, we're already almost certainly declining at CB, DT, and maybe even DE. All of these things taken individually are palatable. But combined, the Vikings could really struggle on defense, especially early in the season.
Going into this offseason I expected RS/Brez to somehow work it out with restructures, etc, like they always do. And the Vikings would retain most of the vets. I was wrong. This defense is going to be unrecognizable.
I just made the argument for keeping Harris, but this same exact reasoning could be used to say, "well if the defense is gonna stink anyways, trade him".
Yes, I was expecting to see them retain some of their own players like they always do, but it seems to be the year where things came to a head. Key players declined too much, the cap caught up to them big time, and younger players like Alexander and Waynes didn't feel appreciated enough and decided to test the market. They allowed too much uncertainty and have hit reset on the D. There is still some talent to work with if Hughes can recover, if Hill stays on track, and Odenigbo can continue his production in a larger role, but there are still a lot of holes that need to be filled and with a tough cap situation, those holes are likely going to be filled with draft picks, RFAs, and mid to low level vets, which makes me feel that it won't be a seamless transition.
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