Vikings Sign Patrick Peterson

Love the signing.

Even if he’s 40% of what he was when he was going to pro bowls in each of his first 8 seasons, along with earning all-pro honors 3 times in that span, he’ll be the best corner on the team by far.

The deal is for one year, 10 million dollars.

Unfortunately the direction this team is going is painfully obvious, and once again was called out perfectly by yours truly in a previous post.

Other free agents the Vikings have signed include LB Nick Vigil (1 year, 1.75 million), DT Dalvin Tomlinson (2 years, 21 million), T Rashod Hill (1 year, 1.05 million), WR Chad Beebe (1 year, 920k), DE Stephen Weatherly (1 year, 2.5 million).

They restructured Anthony Barr’s contract so he will become a free agent after this season (he was previously scheduled to make that leap after the 2023 season). Also they are rumored to have a one year ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ offer on the table for CB Mackenzie Alexander to come back to Minneapolis.

Harrison Smith is in the last year of his contract as well, with little buzz about an extension on the horizon.

Notice a pattern here?

Every deal is for one year.

The only exception is Tomlinson’s, but most of his deal is front loaded. He’ll receive 16 of his 21 million in 2021. Essentially costing Minnesota nothing to keep him around in 2022, or cut him.

In short, this is why I wrote about either firing both Zimmer and Spielman now or giving them lifetime contracts.

They both know they’re gone if the Vikings don’t make the playoffs this year.

The moves they’re making appear to be geared toward making the Vikings good enough to be relevant and postseason eligible…this year.

And hell, we’ll deal with next year, next year.

Not one of these free agent moves has been made with the best long term intentions of the team.

Sure, maybe you can argue that’s what the draft is for. Maybe you can tell me free agency is for plugging your holes now, while the draft is how you build for the future.

Okay, well, I guess Minnesota is taking that mentality to the extreme then. In every Vikings case ‘now’ would be considered one year only.

In free agency, the majority of your team’s signings should be geared toward fixing a hole for at least 3 years. Maybe an occasional one year contract here or there if you feel your roster is close to winning a Super Bowl, but overall you should feel like the player you are signing has the ability to be your guy in that position for at least a few years.

Otherwise what’s the point?

Hypothetically let’s say every player the Vikings signed in free agency (and they’re not done by the way, look for them to sign at least one offensive lineman before the draft…can’t wait to see what that potential contract looks like) has the best year of their careers, and Minnesota gets close…maybe a NFC divisional round win, NFC Championship game run, or even a loss in the Super Bowl.

What do they do the following year?

The answer is they’ll have no choice but to regress.

All those free agents will be hounded in the offseason by franchises with better long term visions of how a team should be run and operate.

The Vikings haven’t been in that sort of goal oriented frame or state of mind since they married into that Kirk Cousins contract and mortgaged the future on his potential future performance.

It’ll be back to square one for Minnesota.

If they lose enough they’ll blow it all up and look for a new coach and GM at year’s end.

If they win enough odds are they’ll have to blow most of it up in 2022 anyway based on contracts and salary cap issues still looming down the road, but Zimmer and Spielman will at least get to keep their jobs.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s been their plan for this year all along.