The Trey Lance, TJ Hockenson rumor circus arrives at Vikings camp
EAGAN — Just your normal day where the entire world thinks you are trading for a recent No. 3 overall draft pick quarterback and there’s a report that your mysteriously limited tight end wants to be the highest paid player at his position in the league.
Does anybody want to talk about who’s going to be WR5?
The Minnesota Vikings’ training camp had a long run there of being pretty quiet, despite the potential for some fireworks.
We wondered at the beginning of camp whether there would be any noise from Justin Jefferson, who is eligible to sign an extension. Instead he’s taken every first-team rep and left a lot of cornerbacks shaking their heads throughout the summer.
We thought there might be something brewing between Kirk Cousins and the team considering they elected not to give the veteran quarterback a contract extension. But the QB said he is comfortable with the situation and GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah gave that impression at his opening press conference as well and we all carried on.
In minicamp TJ Hockenson told reporters that he was letting his agent deal with the contract stuff and planned to go about his business. So when he started camp by taking all the reps and making a bunch of nice catches, nothing seemed to be amiss. And then he started sitting out reps, which he said was because of an ear issue that threw off his balance. That is a new one but still nothing to see here. Or at least until it lasted weeks.
Earlier this week, Hockenson talked to reporters and gave an unusual set of answers that could mostly be paraphrased as: I’m playing Week 1 but not saying anything else about the situation. When he didn’t practice vs. the Cardinals on Wednesday, Kevin O’Connell announced it was back stiffness.
A few hours later, Diana Russini of The Athletic reported that Hockenson wants to “reset” the tight end market.
Not that it’s shocking his absences were related to dollar, dollar bills y’all but… reset the market? That makes it sound like this could go on for a while longer and get contentious. It also sounds like somebody wanted the world to know that he’s asking for too much.
Now we’re cooking with gas.
If you take the wording at its face, it’s hard to see the Vikings making Hockenson the highest paid tight end in the league. No matter how great he fit — and it was terrific — there is no objective measure that puts him in the same ballpark as someone like George Kittle or Travis Kelce.
Jacksonville’s Evan Engram signed a deal for $13.7 million per year earlier this offseason and he compares fairly closely on paper to Hockenson.
Engram caught 73 passes on 97 targets for 766 yards last season. He caught 75% of throws his way at 10.5 yards per reception, lined up in the slot 40% of the time and wide 23%, ranked 27th by PFF in run blocking and graded a 65.3 by PFF overall.
Hockenson caught 86 passes for 914 yards. He had 70% completion percentage when targeted at 10.6 YPC. Hock graded a 70.2 by PFF and ranked 25th in run blocking.
Those numbers would give him an edge but not by as much as it would take for him to clear Darren Waller as the highest paid TE in football at $17 million.
The Vikings also have the franchise tag in their back pocket. They also seem to have found something in Josh Oliver, who has fully taken advantage of his reps with the first team.
So things look pretty complicated at the moment and it’s added a layer of uneasiness because the success of the offense hinges on being able to punish opponents for dedicating their entire gameplans to Justin Jefferson and they haven’t been able to fully practice what they are looking to accomplish with Hockenson.
The drama with Hock could disappear quickly though. Remember when there were reports that Danielle Hunter might get traded and then he signed an extension the next day? That’s how these things go sometimes
Though there is a trend around the league of players trying to fight the good fight for new contracts. Josh Jacobs is sitting out. So is Chris Jones. It seems that teams are digging their heels in this offseason and these conflicts aren’t always resolving them quickly.
So everybody has to live in wait-and-see mode for now.
Now that other thing that feels like it has been rumored since Trey Lance was an eighth grader in Marshall, Minnesota.
During the last NFL Combine, PFT reported that the Vikings were interested in talking to the 49ers about their QB situation. That would make sense since Cousins’s status was unclear and it wasn’t a secret that the 49ers were likely to roll with Brock Purdy under center and not their No. 3 overall pick in 2020.
The buzz died down when camp started and the Vikings talked about their desire to get back to the playoffs. But on Wednesday the 49ers announced that Lance is QB3 behind Sam Darnold and reports surfaced that they are looking at “options” for Lance. There are no other options except trading him.
Because the Vikings do not have a settled quarterback situation in 2024, they were the natural fit for all speculators. Let him sit for a year and then take over the job after Cousins leaves, right?
Where it gets interesting is that so many “insiders” are saying the same thing. That seems like more than just guessing. Is that because the Vikings are intrigued about having Kevin O’Connell work with a young quarterback or because Lance’s side wants to pressure the Vikings into pulling the trigger because it’s a favorable situation in his home state with a QB-friendly coach in O’Connell and the universe’s best receiver in Jefferson.
Take a shot, right? Heck, the Vikings have been taking shots on picks that didn’t work out other places left and right. Jalen Reagor, Ross Blacklock, Joejuan Williams, N’Keal Harry etc.
Quarterback is different though. Talk about a distraction. Talk about making it absolutely clear to the starting QB that he can take a darn hike after this year. Talk about a low-percentage play.
We can talk about Lance’s lack of experience until we are purple and gold in the face but the comparable quarterbacks historically do not paint a good picture. Here’s the list of first-round QBs whose teams did not retain them at least five years since 2010: Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen, Mitch Trubisky, Paxton Lynch, Johnny Manziel, EJ Manuel, Brandon Weeden, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder, Tim Tebow.
Nearly all of them got opportunities with other teams.
There’s another problem. If the Vikings trade for Lance and he’s pretty good in 2024, then they have to pay him. In order to justify paying him, he has to be great, otherwise why not just stick with Cousins? Do we think the Giants are in position to win the Super Bowl any time soon with Daniel Jones making $37 million a year? A best-case scenario for Lance might be Jones, who is a terrific runner and so-so passer and took a long time to have a good season. Just because the guy is big and fast doesn’t mean his upside has to be Josh Allen.
You have to go back quite a ways to find Steve Young becoming a GOAT in San Francisco after a disaster start to his career or Vinny Testaverde proving the Bucs wrong in Cleveland or Brett Favre getting sent packing out of Atlanta and then becoming a legend. It’s almost impossible to find any examples where the drafting team bailed and it worked out.
Yes, the Vikings wouldn’t have to give a high draft pick but there’s more invested than just that when it’s a quarterback. It’s not comparable to acquiring Ross Blacklock.
That isn’t to say it makes no sense, only that Adofo-Mensah would be in a Han Solo “never tell me the odds” situation.
The circumstances have also changed from March. Back then if the Vikings traded for Lance he would have been able to start the entire 2023 season. If it went badly, they could take a quarterback high in the draft. They would have an entire year to find out whether he could play or not. Now they’d be sitting him. If the idea surrounding Lance is that he needs reps, he won’t be getting them here.
Anyway, the Vikings practiced on Wednesday. Brian O’Neill got back into the full-speed mix, Ivan Pace Jr. had an interception, Jalen Reagor made a long catch against the Cardinals and Jalen Nailor, Kene Nwangwu and Brian Asamoah still weren’t a full-go, leaving remaining questions about their health and whether the Vikings will need to acquire some depth before the start of the year. Lewis Cine didn’t practice, rookie Jaquelin Roy did, giving him a shot to play his first preseason game on Saturday. CB Mekhi Blackmon did some work but not 11-on-11s.
All that stuff was normal. Buzz about resetting the TE market and trading for a future QB was not.
Maybe it will be the day where things turned in a certain direction or maybe the reports and rumors will be rendered irrelevant pretty soon.
