nicksaviking

Before this gets out of hand, I’d like to mention that I honestly enjoy Chief being the optimist in this conversation.

So we’d take from the front of the rotation so they can add to the back? Ryan, Lopez, Bradley and via trade (like how they acquired all of the above) add another arm to the TOP of the rotation and #5-7 can be the higher upside Priellip, Rojas and Abel.

Still an upgrade to James Outman.

Trevor Rogers, Casey Mize and Freddie Peralta tend to be considered the top arms available after Skubal. Those guys aren't upgrades. And Jeffers is on everybody's top ten free agent list, and considering catcher is is the offense's biggest hole if he departs, I'd rather have Jeffers over anyone than Skubal and maybe Seiya Suzuki. And that's not taking into account that the Twins don't have to convince these guys to come here, because they already are here; they're the bird in the hand. Jeffers is a bit different as he can and should refuse the Qualifying Offer, but that still leaves the Twins the exclusive window to make him an offer he'd struggle to say no to. Getting rid of what we have for other free agents isn't even a lateral move, it's taking a step backwards.

They need to free up roster spots, but they shouldn't have to free up payroll. They're over 50M under what they were at in 2023. And 25M isn't going to get you a very good free agent this year. Or probably ever again. You'll hit on someone once in awhile, but 25M isn't a middle of the order bat or top of the rotation arm any longer. At least not if you aspire to be a contending team.

But if the free agent class is thin, and he's going to 'prove' to the fans that he's serious about spending money, then it seems his actual goal is to attract fans with hoopla, not win championships with smart roster construction. I've probably been more critical of him than necessary, but these things are all just so easy for him to say. The payroll is an embarrassment, obviously it has to go up, and in fact, the chances are the league is going to FORCE the Twins to raise their spending. I struggle giving a pat on the back for something that was inevitable whether he actually wanted to do it or not. And honestly, the timing of his promotion and all this talk about turning over a new leaf just doesn't add up for me. They got the new ownership investors at the end of the 2025 season. Are we seriously supposed to believe that the investors didn't discuss WHICH Pohlad would be fronting this operation during negotiations? And are we to actually believe they didn't talk about what kind of payroll and operational costs they were on board with? Surely they did, yet they didn't announce Tom taking over until mid December, well after meaningful free agency had started. Then in Tom's first big interview on January 31st, he notably said the team would 'be competitive' but curiously didn't mention increasing payroll, while Dante Bichette, Cody Bellinger and Kyle Tucker were still unsigned. Then only after the season started and the payroll was locked in did he talk about increasing payroll, which obviously could then only be done for fairly trivial amounts via trade. They knew a new CBA was two years out, which means they at least had a good idea that payroll would have to increase by the 2027 season. YET THEY WAITED A FULL SEASON TO DO IT. If they had been serious, wouldn't they have committed to raising it prior to 2026? Maybe at least sign Pete Alonso instead of Josh Bell? Waiting to talk about spending big until after it was too late and pinning the blame on Joe Pohald and Derek Falvey has always seemed a bit performative to me.

Right sentiment, wrong year. Where was this the last two seasons? Unless the team is shooting for the absolute very top of the free agent mountain, going big in a bad free agent class means you're locking in a bunch of veteran players with uncurable warts on to the roster. But alternately, it's possible Tom did NOT misspeak about being 'excited for the month ahead' as the team perhaps has plans on giving out big deals to players already under contract. Keaschall is an obvious candidate. Some of the other young players, or Ryan, Jeffers or Lopez.

Pretty good grades. But where is Mickey Gasper? Got to be an A- at least.

Better start doing more left handed bicep curls for sure. I don't think he HAS to run so much he throws a real nice pass. At least in his rookie season. Oh, new call. Daniels throws and plays so much like Randall Cunningham. After several years of struggling and getting injured, he'll find his way to MN in 2034 and lead the Vikings to the NFC Championship game.

Right. Even if they don’t take 3, a turnover on downs at the 1 is better than a touchback.

He gets obliterated, willingly goes to the tent, and Siriani loses his s#$& on the officials for making him get checked out. Coach does not care about the player. I dislike that guy soooo much.

I am currently worried about how easy it would be to get nuclear missile codes today.

MLBTR says they were fired, the team press release says they won't be retained. Nobody seems to know if they are under contract or not which is probably a big distinction. Neither rationale will look good, did they get fired because they couldn't turn lemons into lemonade? Or because they would be due for a pay increase and will instead hire someone cheaper. Because also of note the ASSISTANT trainer got fired. That one is even harder to figure out. Are we getting a new assistant trainer, or is this job just being 'consolidated'. Because surely the assistant trainer can't be blamed for all the injuries, can he?

I'd say he's good, but not great. But this offense has hardly any talent, so I don't think it works without an elite WR.

Jayden Daniels is practicing today and could start on Sunday. Is he a Transformer and you just move his body parts around as you see fit? Ugh, that was a gross injury.

And these issues are all framed differently for all of us. I think a lot of this stems from our various ideas on how we enjoy this team and our midseason debates about tanking vs going all in. I'm good taking a purposeful step back if it gives the team a chance at being better in the long run. But others want them to put the best team on the field every year and play for this year because next isn't promised. Obviously I'm partial to my prerogative, but I completely understand the other side too.

Not a fit, and even more bizarrely, it appears KOC changed his system to TRY to make him fit. Which is so weird considering how past criticisms have been about how KOC is too committed to a long developing passing game. He changes it, and Murray had little chance of validating this new offense. Not to mention, as much as everyone loves Aaron Jones, a 32-year-old injury prone RB is ALSO not the best fit for this style of play. I'm not faulting KOC for the McCarthy stuff, but giving Murray the keys, a change in overall offensive and blocking schemes and no improvement in the running game were all things decided before they hired a GM, so these things fall squarely on KOC. Also, the draft obviously.

I don't know their thought process. But I have a hard time criticizing since this played out (almost) exactly how I wanted it to. I only wanted to give McCarthy, or whichever rookie QB, two years to show they had the potential to be an upper echelon QB. Any longer than that and it stinks of desperation and delaying finding an actual franchise QB. If McCarthy still wasn't ready in 2025, and clearly he was not, there was no way in hell I was just going to squat on him again and kick the can down the road for another year. I'm no GM so the Vikings maybe had other motives, but I don't think their evaluation heading into 2025 was off, I just don't think there was an evaluation to be had since McCarthy didn't play and didn't practice all year. They had to make the Darnold decision months before McCarthy could give them anything to evaluate other than year-old college tape.

I get it, and the Vikings seemed to have been proven wrong, but nine out of ten years, the Super Bowl is won by a team with an elite QB, and Darnold was not that guy; neither in 2024 nor in 2025. He was asked to do pretty much nothing with Seattle. He had a good game against the Rams, but in the other playoff games Seattle could have won with Christian Ponder at QB. I mean, it's hard to argue Darnold was the guy when he embarrassed MN in the playoffs the season before. Maybe the Vikings defense would have been good enough last year, but the running game wouldn't have been up to snuff to keep up with the other teams.

Crap, Josh Oliver tore his biceps. That's one of those under-the-radar players who will hurt even if we don't exactly see why. The run game will suffer, and if the Vikings are trying to do the ball-control quick passing, he's a decent option in that facet as well.

Looking back into this, it looks like Herbert still has an 86M dead cap hit next year. I'd guess he'd have to be absolutely terrible all year for them to want to part ways, and if he's terrible all year, then we're probably looking at another Kyler Murray situation. As much as I'd be interested, I think this is a dead end. Also, Joe Burrow has a 72M dead cap hit, Josh Allen 147M, Patrick Mahomes 183M, Lamar Jackson 74M, Trevor Lawrence 104M, Jordan Love 83M, Jared Goff 79M, Jalen Hurts 104M, Dak Prescott 131M, Baker Mayfield 95M and Brock Purdy 79M Looks like the only two veteran QBs under a (non rookie) contract that won't cause the other team to make a Tua move and eat an intolerable amount of money are Daniel Jones and Sam Darnold. Where have I seen those guys before? Also, Stafford is only 39M dead cap. So I guess, we've seen much worse. But then you'd have to start inventing reasons for the Rams to move on. And Ty Simpson isn't even dressing at the moment. Also, Malik Willis is at 39M. I don't even want to talk about that.

Also, with all this QB talk, we're missing the bigger point. As long as Jefferson is out, I'm not sure it matters which below average QB this team runs with.

I've said it before, but if we can't have a good QB, my priority is to keep Jefferson happy until we do. McCarthy: No. Wentz: Yes. Murray: TBD. Looking back at the game logs, Mullens: Yes. If Murray gets hurt or just sucks, Mullens would be a good pick up if he's still on the Jax practice squad. I'd guess the new game-manager Wentz would still get the starts though. Funny, because the chuck it out there and cross your fingers play that Mullens brings, seemed to be the same bit that both Wentz and Jameis Winston were known for, but now what, both of those guys turned into old grandpas and will conservatively dink-and-dunk as their coaches like them to do? Boring. Safe and admittedly smart, but boring.

I had been thinking swapping him to SF and getting Jordan James back. But I'd guess if KOC and the Vikings don't want KOC continually compared to Kyle Shanahan (and they should absolutely NOT care at all about that) they probably wouldn't want to send McCarthy there where he might learn to be a decent game manager.

I disagree. McCarthy was the 5th QB taken in the draft and NOBODY here was under the impression that he was a can't miss prospect. We all knew this was a high risk pick but most of us agreed the Vikings needed to take the chance anyway. Not an indictment at all in my book, If anything, being decisive and cutting bait on him, instead of desperately trying to make it work is a good sign. I only ever wanted to try this experiment for two years before the team tried again.