The NFL 2018 Season

Cleveland made a bad personnel decision? That’s unpossible!

Being home can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what influences there are around you.

Heh, not so much when he was drafted, although I don’t think he was worth the No. 15 pick. Anyway, when he was drafted they were using the 3-4 and he was drafted as a nose tackle. In Cleveland’s ever-revolving coaching carousel, they changed to the 4-3.

Well, shit.

Cousins to Minnesota it sounds like. A massive contract too.

Former Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins plans to sign a three-year, fully guaranteed $84 million contract with the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday, sources tell ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Goodbye Case, hello deep playoff spot?

Well that’s gonna change contract negotiations going forward.

Yes it is. Is that a first?

Yeah holy crap, are they going to be able to field any other players?

I am not positive but I believe that it is, for modern football contracts.

As a Lions fan I hate this signing. The Vikings were a strong team last year and one of the top SB contenders going into the playoffs. Their strong defense will be a huge benefit for a QB like Cousins. He can put points on the board and that D will make them very hard to outscore. I think going in, that the Vikings have to be the division favorite and possibly the conference favorite as well. 84 million guaranteed for 3 years is a helluva bet for them to make but I think it was a smart move on their part, the bastards.

There’s no way that guy is worth that much money. No. Way.

Aaron Rodgers now has Jimmy Graham. Yikes.

Hopefully the Packers find a better use for him than the Seahawks did. I was a big fan of his during his time with the Saints but the last few years have been kind of a void.

Yeah, he and Gronk were arguably the two best TEs in the game when he was with the Saints. He sort of disappeared with the Seahawks.

Jeebus… this morning I’d read a report he was going to get something like 70mil for three years. 84…whoof. As the man says…YOU LIKE THAT?!

I agree that it is a huge $87 million dollar gamble. But if he takes them to the Super Bowl, Im pretty sure the Vikings would disagree with your assessment.

Case Keenum had them one game away for $1,906,250 in 2017.

What has Kirk Cousins won exactly?

This is the guy who could barely get past Robert Griffin III onto the field in Washington. He’s JAG if I ever saw one. That was a massive overpay. I think they were also only bidding against themselves at that price, and what happens if/when he gets hurt?

I know it’s a homer call out, but this is why teams should be valuing the QB position differently. You want to pay good money to at least TWO players and not great money to one and dirt to the other one or two at QB. You need an insurance policy, otherwise you’re risking it all every season like the Packers on the ability of your one guy to stay on the field, which other than Tom Brady and maybe Matt Ryan seems impossible these days.

Again, what has Kirk Cousins done exactly to deserve such off season furor? He’s Just A Guy.

I’m not a Cousins guy, and I’ma be super pissed when Teddy is ripping it up in Miami while Kirk puts the ball on the ground again and again, but this is the reality of free-agent QBs in the NFL. Unambiguously starter-quality guys don’t get to FA at the position, because there aren’t enough of them to go around the league.

I don’t know that Cousins is much north of “unambiguously starter-quality,” but that’s worth something. An average QB can put up, well, Case Keenum 2017-level numbers in a good offense and get you where you need to go. You just hope he doesn’t throw a pick-6 the team can never recover from on the second drive of the game in the NFCCCG.

Seahawks suck at using tight ends, case closed.

28 mil per year, fully guaranteed. Crazy

Well to be fair, he had Brees throwing to him in NO in a pass happy offense. Seattle seemed like a pretty bad place to go if he wanted to continue racking up the yards/TDs.

Also, the Vikings are almost uniquely able to suck up a deal like this because of their cap situation. This is a really great article on the subject.

Short version: Lots of space for 2018, ability to frontload Cousins’ cap hit, guys (LB Barr, LB Kendricks, WR Diggs, DE Hunter) aren’t due to get paid until 2019, basically no dead money to worry about.

But with the Cousins deal we just outlined and moves that recoup, say, another $6 million in cap space, the Vikings would still have $17.64 million to spare for 2018. And by the time they need to pay some of their other young players, Cousins’ cap figure, as a percentage of the Vikings’ overall spending, would be roughly in line with what other teams spend on their passers.

That “roughly in line” bit assumes non-rookie-deal quality starting QBs get between 9-11% of a team’s cap any given year, and it’s been rising by ~10-12m per year.