nicksaviking

Because there's only a handful of 'CEO' players and the vast majority are at or near your bottom tier? Yeah Bryce Harper won't like it, tough luck because there are 10x more Kody Clemons who would see their pay increase exponentially. If you took a poll at the workplaces of those Fortune 500 companies and asked if the workers would be in favor of limiting CEO raises so there was more money for everyone else, it would overwhelmingly pass in favor of the working class. At those companies the worker bees get no vote, with the MLBPA, they all should, even if I suspect those with the most money try to silence them.

I'd imagine it would work similar to what happened in the NFL in 1994. Teams were forced to shed salaries and some of those bigger contracts ended up on teams that previously wouldn't pay them. Not to mention the two new expansion teams looking to make an impact with big named players. Additionally, teams will finally be forced to pay young players accordingly. Maybe there's no more arbitration and pre-arb players. Or they could have a grandfather clause which I believe the NBA had in 1984. As for opening their books, the players are going to demand that regardless even if it's an arbiter who sees the numbers and not them. We're long past the days of the union taking the owners word about their earnings.

That won't work and the players won't and shouldn't go for it. Just like every other functional pro team, the cap and floor have to be within 10% of each other. But the owners know this is the only way it will work or get accepted, so I (possibly naively) have to think that the commissioner talking caps now, long before this possible lock out will happen, means they have come to terms with the NFL/NBA/NHL model. The Yankees and Dodgers won't like it, but like what should have happened 30 years ago, there are enough middle and lower market teams to vote them down. Not that I think they'll have to because really, I think what the owners actually want is the expansion teams and the reported 2 Billion expansion fee per club. As much as they like to talk, they can't add two new markets that are smaller than the ones that are already crying poor. Not with the current media/revenue model. Raleigh? Salt Lake City? Those are AAA markets, the only reason they could possibly want them is because the league is drooling over the big, fat upfront payoff. And a full revenue share of media rights isn't as big of a sacrifice as we'd think; it means way more to the small markets than the big ones. The last figures I see are that the Yankees made 143M from Yes Network in 2022, that's a lot, but only 20% of their overall revenue that year of 657M. So if there really will be 4B plus in expansion fee revenue, letting the big market teams take a bigger chunk of that pie in exchange for near-full media revenue sharing could offset some of that lost revenue, meanwhile despite their size, the newness of the expansion clubs are going to help buoy the overall media pool.

Tai Felton in the 3rd is already looking like a regretful pick. No Addison, Thielen is still only running 65% of the snaps as he's old and likely not yet back up to speed, yet Felton has only played special teams. In the 4th round alone there were three or four RBs that would have been helpful right about now. In the secondary, drafting Billy Bowman instead of Atlanta getting him might have won last week's game and Craig Woodson looks like a steal in NE; both went in the 4th. Several LBs from that round are already contributing and making their mark too and the Vikings need those. And it's not like there weren't better receivers available if that's the position they REALLY wanted.

.391, .404, .358 and .369. Those were the breakout year OBP of Muncy, Turner, Martinez and Ortiz. Being able to work the count and get on base was the reason that after years of toiling it all clicked for them, and this was a skill they all had going back to the minors. Kody Clemens OBP is .289 here in his 'break out' season and his prior MiLB and MLB numbers track with that. That number in itself is a DFA'able offense on a capable team. He doesn't have the skill set to be a reliable everyday player. It's why many of us were saying not to bring back a guy like Michael A Taylor; it was a fluke season and you can't be a reliable player year in and year out without that skill. Unlike Taylor, Clemens is pretty much free, and in the Twins case there is no chance they can fill their 40-man with actual MLB talent next year, so he may stay. But all things being equal, I don't want him here if only to prevent Baldelli from over-using him at the expense of more talented players.

Vikings sign Desmond Ridder as the 3rd QB. Not coincidentally, he was in training camp with Cincinnati. Truly coincidentally, Brett Rypien is the Bengals back up QB, the Bengals signed him to their practice squad back in August.

I thought it would end up being Jamaal Williams. If only to mix it up this year.

I'm sure it was, but at what point does the 8th year RT see an unaccounted for edge rusher coming to kill the QB and say, 'I better pick this one up because the rookie QB and Center clearly didn't read this right'? Or was he trying to teach them a lesson?

Winston would make games fun, but I don't think the winning kind fun. In terms of winning and losing, I'd guess the two are a push. So if it's a push, I'll take Wentz because at least he has a shot to pull a Daniel Jones, getting a starting gig elsewhere and getting the Vikings a comp pick. Winston on the other hand will never be giving another NFL Day 1 starter gig, as evidenced by his lack of getting one since putting up a !5000K! passing yard season six years ago. The collective lack of confidence in him is staggering. But I agree, he's fun.

Jake Browning vs Carson Wentz. Too bad for the networks it's too early in the year to start flexing games.

For those guys isn't anything less than a championship a wasted season? I can't imagine anyone thinks Cousins can do that. Also, I'm not sure it's a given that Cousins is any better than Wentz. If I had to bet I'd say he is, but we haven't seen him do anything since he was benched. If that noodle arm we saw at the end of last year was what we can now expect from Cousins going forward, he's toast.

Nope. The stratification of where Cousins may be too good to bench, but not good enough to win it all is too big. Players, fans and some coaches would be calling to keep Cousins just to watch entertaining football, but at the expense of figuring out a long term solution, which was the path they committed to when Cousins left. I'd rather lose ten games with McCarthy than win ten games with Cousins, simply because to someday win a championship, they have to figure this out. Even if Wentz plays well enough to win games, we're way less likely to have that problem.

Looks like we've got a big week of talking points, might as well start this one early.

Might as well just run two TE sets from now until Darrisaw and Addison come back anyway. I was less than thrilled watching Nailor let the nickelback hop over his shoulder on that INT and the near INT. Trey Hendrickson is the Bengals only useful defensive player. If he's not double and triple teamed on every play next week, the Vikings are getting too cute with things.

Last night I said they should pull him after the 3rd string LT was in the game; those guys are going to get him killed. Better a few games now than all the games after next week. McCarthy has to play at least 10 games this year; I don't want to be in the same position in 2026 that we were in 2025 wondering. We need to have a pretty good read on the situation.

Yeah, I'm guessing it means they know it's a high ankle sprain and he's going on the IR. Agree with Aggie that it might have a silver lining, though I think if we were going to play that game with an injury, it would have been better if JJ had gotten a couple more weeks to learn from yesterday's loss, THEN let Wentz take all the lumps facing an absolute brutal schedule of the Eagles, Chargers, Lions and Ravens. Wentz's worst habit is holding on to the ball too long too. Lucky for him and the Vikings, the Bengals are a great fix for that problem.

Also, I'm fine with Harrison Smith keeping whatever his ailment is private, but when did the Vikings know about this? They could have signed other safeties instead. Sorry to be unsentimental about it, but Julien Blackmon cost half as much. And that's just one safety off the top of my head, there were plenty of others out there late in free agency.

I agree that he held on to the ball too long quite often, but I don't think he did on the sacks. The first one looked like he got hit right at the 2 second mark and that was the most time he had. https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/falcons-vs-vikings-atlanta-keeps-jj-mccarthy-minnesota-out-of-end-zone-in-strong-22-6-victory-225351115.html Took me a minute, but the first sack was shown twice for some reason. Two other sacks McCarthy had the wherewithal to get out of the pocket and run, but got caught before getting back to the line of scrimmage. I'm on board with those efforts; I'm fine risking giving up a yard or two if the reward for escaping is picking up ten. The other three sacks he had less than two seconds; twice having about a second. The OL was awful. Might have been due to McCarthy not calling the right protections, but Skule and O'Neill were brutal in any case. The strip sack in particular was an awful look for O'Neill. He decides to double the nose tackle with Fries (who appears to the be lineman least in need of help), so I have to assume he thought Aaron Jones would pick up the 270 lb Zach Harrison running at full speed? And then even though he's double teaming the nose tackle, O'Neill still gets pancaked. Even if it was a blown protection call, O'Neill should have instantly understood he had to get hands on the the edge rusher.

Yeah, I thought that deep throw on 3rd meant for sure they were running a play on 4th. The deep pass and punt made no sense. I think without Bradbury under center, they now CAN run up the middle on short down plays, but it looked very much like they never practice it. They need to practice the hell out of that stuff now, and with both centers. Also, JJ looks more comfortable improvising when flushed outside of the pocket to the right. They should be bootlegging more; particularly in short yardage. Scan the field for busted coverage or take off running.

Hurts still isn't a very good passer; a good run defense that can limit those big runs can still take them down. That's a big ask, I know, but it looked like the Rams were going to take them down in the playoffs last year. Even if no one can this year, Barkley's 345 carries last year and nearly 29-years of age are going to hit the cliff sooner rather than later.

A rookie QB and a bad OL are the worst possible combination in the NFL. Can't change the rookie part so they better fix that OL ASAP. And while Skule is clearly the weak part of the line, O'Neill is healthy but not looking like he's doing his job either. After those two spots, it seem Jackson keeps getting beat on stunts and delayed blitzes. Ugh, he's a rookie, and he looks good otherwise so I'll presume he'll improve there. I don't think I've heard Fries name once this year, which is positive, and aside from that botched snap (and concussion) I think Kelly has been good.

Does that sweatshirt mean he lost his fantasy football league last year?

Aaaand now Van Ginkel is ruled out. Along with Darrisaw. This is really early for the Vikings to be this short handed.

I think you need more than Eric Wilson and an occasional Van Ginkel as far as ILBs in coverage. Still seems weird Eric Kendricks never signed. He's old, but his pass game instincts have to be sharp enough to be a better in coverage than Pace. Otherwise Kobe King and/or one of the UDFA ILBs are going to really need to do something.

I really hope they don't get tempted to have Pace do any more than he already does in coverage. That went very poorly last year. He also appeared to be the one who lost coverage on Odunze last week for that late TD to make it close.