Report: Vikings converting Kirk Cousins contract, creating cap space
The Minnesota Vikings have reportedly made a move involving Kirk Cousins, with NFL Network's Ian Rapoport saying they have working a "cap conversation" to Cousins' contract that will create additional cap space for 2023.
A cap conversation simply the moving around of money, converting part of his base salary into a bonus. According to Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune, the conversion will trim about $16 million from Cousins's $36.25 million cap hit in 2023.
The #Vikings' salary cap conversion with Kirk Cousins saves $16 million on their 2023 cap, according to a league source.
— Ben Goessling (@BenGoessling) March 14, 2023
Before the move, OverTheCap had the Vikings at $9.9 million over the cap, so if accurate the $16 million in savings will get Minnesota to about $6 in cap space just in time for the new league year to begin Wednesday, which is when all teams need to be cap compliant.
What exactly does the cap conversion for Cousins mean? Matthew Coller explains...
"In the Vikings’ current cap situation they didn’t have many other buttons to push in order to create enough cap space to fill out their roster in free agency and sign their next draft class. The only other choice would have been signing Cousins to an extension to lower his cap hit but all signs are pointing to an impasse. It’s still possible they could extend him but they needed to get cap compliant today so they had to do something," Coller told Bring Me The Sports.
The move is also another potential indication that Minnesota is not going to give Cousins a contract extension, meaning he could be playing out the final year of his deal with Minnesota without any future guarantees.
Another possibility would be Minnesota lowering his cap hit to make him easier to trade, according to Coller, who noted in a text message that such a scenario is "less likely."
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.