One in The Top 3, Two in The Top 75, and Five in The Top 100
Building an NFL team with a fixed budget is no easy task. How high should one go with the team’s top players? It’s a challenging question to answer, and different teams employ different strategies. An issue Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is navigating is how to arrive at a healthy Minnesota Vikings budget even though he’s dealing with a lot of the deals from the former regime.
The new GM has responded by mostly keeping and restructuring players. Michael Pierce was the most notable cut; the free agent additions were fairly tame. Adofo-Mensah opted to adjust his team rather than recreate his team.
An interesting detail from the Vikings’ budget is that Minnesota has made efforts to be less top heavy. It’s still an issue, but it’s one that is less notable. Currently, the team has a player with the third-largest cap hit in the NFL. There’s only one more who ranks in the top 75 cap hits for 2022. The top 100 hits includes five names overall. Take a look at who they are:
- Kirk Cousins – 3rd
- Eric Kendricks – 72nd
- Danielle Hunter – 89th
- Dalvin Cook – 93rd
- Adam Thielen – 95th
The most eye-popping number, of course, is Cousins sitting at 3rd in the entire NFL. His nearly $31.5 million is a step back from the $45 million he was scheduled to make heading into the year, but it’s still a massive number. Otherwise, it’s somewhat surprising to see there aren’t any other players in the top 50.
Getting into the top 200 adds another layer of complexity. Only Brian O’Neill and Dalvin Tomlinson can be added to the list (Harrison Smith comes in at 204th). From there, it’s a massive jump down to Garrett Bradbury at 371st.
For context, Green Bay has three top 100 players and two more in the top 200. Somehow, Detroit has three in the top 100 (Jared Goff is 4th) and four more in the top 200. Chicago has three in the top 100 and a lonely player added in if we take the top 200 into account.
The Minnesota Vikings budget still shows evidence of being top heavy. Having lots of good players who demand a lot of money isn’t a bad thing. Indeed, needing to pay talented players is a good problem to have. The major caveat, though, is that those highly-paid players need to excel. If they fall short, the roster likely won’t have the necessary depth to compete.
[brid autoplay=”true” video=”1016706″ player=”26281″ title=”Vikings%20Players%20Slated%20for%202023%20Free%20Agency” duration=”964″ description=”Dustin Baker goes through players on final years of contracts in 2022.” uploaddate=”2022-05-21″ thumbnailurl=”https://cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/19439/snapshot/1016706_th_1653117094.jpg” contentUrl=”//cdn.brid.tv/live/partners/19439/sd/1016706.mp4″ width=”16″ height=”9″]
