Another day in purple purgatory? That’s the tone Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio is writing with in his reaction piece to the Vikings reportedly preparing to release Dalvin Cook if they can’t find a trade partner before Friday.
Florio appears to see the Vikings through the lens of 2022, when they won 13 games and were arguably a slightly improved defense shy of being a truly dangerous team in what was a wide open NFC. Is that fair? Fair enough, but he argues the Vikings should’ve restructured Cook’s contract and pushed money down the road to keep him on the team.
He says “it would have been easy to exercise the right to restructure Cook’s contract and push cap dollars to future years, as the cap keeps going up and up.”
Over The Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald projects the salary cap to balloon to $256 million in 2024, $282 million in 2025 and $308 in 2026.
Sure, the Vikings could’ve restructured Cook’s deal and pushed money into the future. But what does that get them in the short term? It gets them a running back who is obviously one of the best in franchise history, but who has also battled chronic shoulder injuries and he’s on the verge of turning 28 years old, which is a risky age to be paying big money to running back.
Cook has 1,282 carries in six years with the Vikings. Broncos great Terrell Davis fell off a cliff after 1,343 career carries. Arian Foster plummeted after 1,391 carries. For every Adrian Peterson there seems to be 50 Arian Fosters. That is, there aren’t many guys who can take nearly 2,400 carries like Peterson and be going strong. Most fall off the face of the earth in their late 20s.
Dumping Cook now saves money in the short term and eliminates the risk of doling out big dollars and being hammered by significant cap hits when he’s no longer producing at a starter level. Even if the cap goes up, the $14M-$15M cap hits in 2025, 206 and potentially further down the road had the Vikings restructured his deal, that’s money the Vikings could be spending on far more valuable position groups.
Florio acknowledges that Minnesota’s offense should be just fine without Cook, but it’s almost as if he’s taking the Cook news personal. Dare we say, like a Vikings fan?
“Still, all things considered, it feels like just another day in purple purgatory, where being just good enough is always good enough, and where loyal fans will be lured to fill the stands and buy the merch not by the reality of a championship run but by the consistently fleeting, false hope of one,” Florio concludes.
