The Vikings Are Taking ADVANTAGE Of Something Other Teams Don't Understand...

AtoZ Sports

Tyler Forness talks about the Minnesota Vikings free agency approach, and recent comments by an NFL executive, who criticized what the team did.

Transcript

00:00The Minnesota Vikings have been widely praised for their free agency strategy, but was it

00:05deserved?

00:06One exact fires back and did not like what they did at all.

00:10Let's talk about why.

00:14The Minnesota Vikings had an excellent free agency.

00:18They filled all their needs, and not only did they fill them, they got some really talented

00:23football players to boot.

00:24They spent more money than just about any team in the National Football League in free

00:28agency, but they also had a lot to work with.

00:31It's over $63 million at the beginning of the free agency period.

00:35Now, they had needs on both sides of the football in the trenches, and they fortified them on

00:40both sides of the football with center Ryan Kelly, Ryker, Real Fries on offense, and then

00:45you had defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave.

00:48It was great moves, right?

00:50Plus, they're going to get two compensatory picks back.

00:53But the athletics Mike Sando, who is very plugged in and talks to a lot of executives, scouts,

00:57coaches, all that kind of stuff.

01:00He talked to people about every single team in the National Football League.

01:04One executive did not have a lot of nice things to say, and it's very interesting.

01:08We'll explain why it's interesting in a minute.

01:11But here's the quote.

01:12It's like the 2015 Colts all over again, signing older guys who have been hurt, who are on

01:17third or fourth contracts, one exec said.

01:20And he's talking about a team that added Trent Cole, Frank Gore, Kendall Langford, and Andre

01:24Johnson in free agency.

01:25You cannot build a team with old players.

01:28That same exec continued, especially old players who have been cut because they were hurt.

01:32Now, that's a very interesting one.

01:34And it's interesting for two reasons.

01:36One, the GM of that 2015 team, VP of Player Personnel, Ryan Gregson.

01:44Ryan Gregson, who's in the Vikings front office right now.

01:48Pretty impressive.

01:49The link is obvious for that reason.

01:51Gregson tried to build a team of stars.

01:56Well, sometimes when you build a team of stars in a free agency, it fizzles out.

02:00The way it's different with Quasi Opalmenza is he's trying to find advantages.

02:05One advantage he's found that has worked for him is by targeting players who were injured

02:09and trusting the medical staff to keep them uninjured.

02:13Andrew Van Ginkle, Blake Cashman are two prime examples.

02:18Cashman missed three games with what was described as a stir-toe injury.

02:21Van Ginkle missed like a half.

02:24They were kept pretty healthy all year long.

02:27And the Vikings think they can do that again.

02:30Will Fries broke his leg.

02:31Ryan Kelly's had injury issues all throughout his career.

02:34Jonathan Allen partially torn pectoral muscle.

02:36Javon Hargrave torn triceps.

02:37They think that they can fix those injury concerns.

02:42Prevent them from being a thing.

02:44And hey, we mentioned Van Ginkle and Cashman.

02:46We didn't even mention Aaron Jones who played all 17 games for just the third time in his career.

02:50He played every week.

02:53The Vikings think that they have an advantage here.

02:55Is it fair to criticize them for it?

02:57I think they don't understand why the Minnesota Vikings are doing it.

03:01They're looking at it from a spreadsheet perspective.

03:05Hey, you signed this guy.

03:06You gave him a total of $60 million over three years if he maxed it out in Jonathan Allen.

03:11But he's coming off a year where he only played half the games because of a torn pec.

03:15Doesn't make a lot of sense.

03:16When you contextualize it, it does.

03:19The Vikings are ready to roll.

03:21And they have a medical staff that can keep them healthy.

03:27It's a market edge that Quasio Vemensa has exploited before.

03:30And it's not always going to work.

03:32But if it works again, we could be talking about a Super Bowl.

03:34I'm Tyler Fornis with ADZ Sports.

03:38Skull Vikings.

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