The 4 Most Outrageous Storylines from the Vikings Offseason
The Minnesota Vikings hired a new offensive coordinator, Klint Kubiak, early this year. The team also added Ryan Ficken as special teams coordinator and Keenan McCardell as wide receivers coach. Then, general manager Rick Spielman signed a litany of defensive free agents to shore up depth, culminating in Everson Griffen’s reunion with the team on Monday. The NFL draft was highlighted by the selections of Christian Darrisaw, Wyatt Davis, and Kellen Mond. Spielman also navigated Danielle Hunter’s alleged disgruntlement, convincing the Vikings pass rusher to remain with the franchise for 2021 and reevaluate his contract next spring.
That’s all the normal stuff. The Vikings were not without the wacky storylines as head coach Mike Zimmer hopes to bounce back from a mediocre 7-9 season last year.
Here are the four most outrageous storylines from the Vikings 2021 offseason.
A Kirk Cousins Trade
Image Courtesy of @locktominny on Twitter.
Matthew Stafford was traded by the Detroit Lions to the Los Angeles Rams at the end of January for a king’s ransom. The offseason was supposed to entail unprecedented quarterback movement between teams, so Kirk Cousins was naturally the next man on the docket for trade.
That was false, and it was never remotely true.
There are the receipts:
Didn’t happen.
Sounds like it will be Cousins in San Francisco but either way I still think Jimmy G starts the opener for the Pats. 🤷♂️
— Ross Tucker (@RossTuckerNFL) February 1, 2021
All contentions from Tucker were flatly wrong. While Cousins is a semi-polarizing player, the Vikings did not have plans to jettison him. San Francisco was at the top of the fake list because of Cousins’ ties to Kyle Shanahan. The 49ers drafted Trey Lance instead. Cousins was also linked to the Denver Broncos as their long-term quarterback prognosis remains fluid. Even the Chicago Bears were whispered as a Cousins destination before the team drafted Justin Fields.
Cousins makes a lot of money – this is inarguable – but Spielman is going to roll with the experiment for one more season. Cousins-to-elsewhere was never all that plausible. Since he joined the Vikings in 2018, Cousins has delivered the fifth-most touchdown passes in the NFL. That doesn’t grow on trees with some Garoppolo gossipy trade. And Spielman knows it.
Dakota Dozier Actually Starting Again
Jan 3, 2021; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Minnesota Vikings offensive guard Dakota Dozier (78) before the game against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports
Here’s the deal: The Vikings coaching staff knew from the onset of the offseason that it wouldn’t be an intelligible plan to start Dozier at right guard again. Dozier struggled profusely in 2020, ending the season at the bottom of the barrel per Pro Football Focus among offensive guards.
Nonetheless, the Vikings took their sweet time replacing Dozier – Spielman added no notable free-agent guards. Instead, he traded with the Arizona Cardinals for Mason Cole, drafted Ohio State’s Wyatt Davis, and [along with Zimmer and Klint Kubiak] promoted Oli Udoh to the starting RG assignment.
Fans made the psychosis memes, a goofy and panicked illustration that attempted to coax the Vikings into signing a guard. But they didn’t. Cole-Davis-Udoh was the ultimate plan, for better or worse.
But Dozier was never going to start at RG1 in 2021 as “the solution.”
The Vikings as a Julio Jones Trade Destination
Sep 8, 2019; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones (11) catches a pass for. Mandatory Credit: Harrison Barden-USA TODAY Sports
This one was fun.
Julio Jones wanted out of Atlanta after a decade. Of course, he’d come to the Vikings, right? Negatory.
Jones-to-Minnesota was ultra-fun to ponder – for about five seconds. Habitually under Zimmer, the Vikings run the football at a top-five clip for percentage of running plays. Minnesota is a run-first team, hence the lucrative direct deposits that hit Dalvin Cook’s bank account. Adding Jones to the stable with Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson would be an embarrassment of riches, particularly for a squad that throws seldom compared to pass-first teams.
The Tennessee Titans won the Julio Sweepstakes. Why? Because they didn’t holster a tried-and-true WR2 like the Vikings. The Titans run the ball a lot – just like the Vikings – but they lacked a second homerun hitter on the WR rung of the depth chart. They don’t anymore, though.
The only way that Minnesota would take on Jones and his contract would be for a swap of prominent assets – and Spielman wasn’t trading a Thielen, a folklorish Minnesota hero.
Rodgers-Less NFC North
VikingsTerritory partook in this outrageousness – full disclosure there. Relations between an aloof Rodgers and a weirdly stubborn Packers front office were so strained that it truly seemed Rodgers would be traded to the Denver Broncos or Las Vegas Raiders – or simply retire at the peak of his powers for Jeopardy.
We were wrong. Rodgers casually waltzed backed to Green Bay with some Vikings fans speculating that this is all a teaser trailer for Rodgers to join Minnesota in a couple of years a la Brett Favre in 2009. Now that part, is outrageous.
If the Vikings wish to conquer the NFC North, they’ll have to go through Rodgers, which is fair considering a team must slay formidable foes if it hopes to effectuate a Super Bowl trek.
Minnesota is due. The franchise has lost six consecutive NFC Championship games. Meanwhile, the Packers are two behind this dubious mark with four straight conference championship losses – all in the last seven seasons.
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