Will the Minnesota Vikings use their new cap space?
Can we call it a roster overhaul?
The Minnesota Vikings’ brass may have elected to retain several key players this offseason like Danielle Hunter, Adam Thielen, Harrison Smith and Kirk Cousins but their supporting cast looks quite a bit different from last year after Tuesday’s cutdown day. Out of 53 on the active roster, 21 Vikings players are new this season.
The biggest surprise of the day was the team releasing defensive tackle Armon Watts and acquiring DT Ross Blacklock from the Texans.
Heading into cutdown day there weren’t many signs that the Vikings would move on from Watts, who ranked 21st among defensive tackles in PFF pass rush grade (with at least 500 snaps) and 27th in pass rush win rate last season. He spent the majority of practice time with the first or second team and sat out the third preseason game with the rest of the starters.
We will get answers later in the week when GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell address the media about roster changes but the acquisition of Blacklock suggests that they did not see Watts as a fit for Ed Donatell’s scheme or they saw Blacklock as a comparable player who was under contract longer. In a smaller sample, Blacklock had a similar pass rush win rate to Watts and his contract runs through 2023 with very affordable cap hits of $1.3 this year and $1.6 million next season.
The Vikings also blew up the 2021 draft class on Tuesday, waiving Kellen Mond, Wyatt Davis, Chazz Surratt, Janarius Robinson, Zach Davidson and Jaylen Twyman. It’s possible some of them could be retained on the practice squad but it’s very unusual to see this many players fail to get to Year 3. Even the Vikings’ worst class in recent memory – 2016 – managed to have six of nine picks still on the squad two years later.
What happened?
The 2021 draft was unique because of the sheer number of players who elected to stay in college and use extra eligibility granted to them due to COVID. The Vikings aren’t unique in their failings in that round as only seven of 40 third-round players qualified as starters by Pro-Football Reference last year.
Mond was given every opportunity to win the No. 2 job in 2021 and 2022. His only competition in camp as a rookie was UDFA Jake Browning. He was cut at the end of camp and replaced by Sean Mannion, who served as the backup QB last year. After having an offseason to develop and a new coaching staff that was publicly supportive of him, Mond split second-team reps with Mannion all summer and struggled to consistently perform in practices or preseason games. If he doesn’t return on the practice squad, the Vikings’ coaching staff will essentially be saying that they do not see his issues as fixable.
There were Mond supporters in the draft analysis world when he came out of college but historically speaking the Vikings made a low-percentage play picking him in the third round. The only QB since Kirk Cousins and Russell Wilson in 2012 to be selected between the third and fourth rounds and become a successful starter is Dak Prescott.
Wyatt Davis is a different story. While there was a report that some inside the Vikings’ building did not want to pick the Ohio State guard, he was decorated at one of the top college programs and ranked highly by those covering the draft. He simply failed to launch. Mike Zimmer suggested during last year’s camp that Davis wasn’t in good enough shape and he never escaped the third team in practice this year.
Surratt was a converted quarterback who flashed explosiveness on special teams but may have struggled to master the position at the highest level. Davidson is a raw player who could still have upside but when given an opportunity to take the job with Irv Smith Jr. injured, he had issues consistently catching the ball, including a memorable drop in the second preseason game that would have turned into a huge gain. Robinson missed all last year and may not have fit the Vikings’ specs for edge rushers and Twyman hadn’t played football since 2019 and received the lowest PFF grade on defense for preseason.
The Vikings set themselves up for the possibility of a 2021 class purge in this year’s draft when they picked guard Ed Ingram in the second round and linebacker Brian Asamoah in the third. They gave undrafted edge rusher Luiji Vilain over $200,000 to sign per the Pioneer Press. Vilain made the team on Tuesday after a standout preseason finale.
Cutting Watts and the majority of the 2021 class does create a little extra cap space for the Vikings now and a significant chunk for next season. Per OverTheCap.com, the Vikings currently sit at $6.6 million in free space.
Will they use it?
In the NFL, teams can carry over cap space from year to year. With the Vikings projected to still only have under $7 million for 2023 with Tuesday’s cuts, they could elect to stash it away to spend next offseason.
If the Vikings elect to invest their remaining dollars, three spots in particular stand out as most likely possibilities: Defensive line, receiver, center.
There were rumors that defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh could be interested in Minnesota. He played 718 snaps for the Tampa Bay Bucs last year and picked up 6.0 sacks. However, his PFF grades have fallen in each of the last three years. Veteran Sheldon Richardson is also still on the market. He played 688 snaps for the Vikings in 2021 and was effective at times, picking up 37 total pressures.
When the Vikings lost Bisi Johnson for the year to an ACL injury they were robbed of a reliable receiving option behind Justin Jefferson, Adam Thielen and KJ Osborn. Following cuts the only players behind them are Ihmir Smith-Marsette and rookie Jalen Nailor.
Former Gopher Tyler Johnson was claimed by the Texans after being released by the Bucs. The list of other veteran free agents is filled with name recognition. The likes of Cole Beasley, Emmanuel Sanders, DeSean Jackson and TY Hilton remain unsigned. Whether any of them plan to play this year is unclear. There’s also Odell Beckham Jr., who tore his ACL in the Super Bowl and hasn’t yet found a home. It seems unlikely that he would accept a job in a crowded receiver room but it could be worth investigation considering they are set to run three-receiver personnel and a Rams-influenced offense that Beckham Jr. would know.
On cutdown day the Vikings traded guard Jesse Davis to Pittsburgh for a conditional 2025 draft pick. They interestingly kept three backup tackles in Blake Brandel, Vedarian Lowe and Oli Udoh. It’s possible the Vikings could look for someone who provides a more experienced option at backup center than Chris Reed (zero regular season games at center) or Austin Schlottmann (42 regular season snaps at center).
Kansas City released Austin Reiter, an experienced center with strong pass blocking grades from PFF in 2019 and 2020 and veteran Nick Martin, who also put together multiple full seasons of solid pass blocking, was cut loose by the Saints. Either player as a short-term backup and potential starting option if Garrett Bradbury struggles to adapt to the new system would fit the Vikings’ needs.
In the past, the final roster has not been final. With a few days before the Vikings go into full regular season mode and begin preparation for the Green Bay Packers we could still see some movement. If not, the prudent long-term play might be to spend it next March in free agency.
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