Rudolph with a Very Shiny New Contract

[SemperFeist]

 

Edited June 11, 2019 by SemperFeist

[Vikes_Bolts1228]

I'll reserve judgement until I see the deets.

[footbull3196]

This was an unexpected offseason development.  I assumed he was gone after this season, especially considering that we took Irv Smith in the 2nd round.  Glad to see the team bring him back though.  He’s always been a dependable player

[Klomp]

And if you ever saw it, you could even say the contract glows....

[Klomp]

 

[Vikes_Bolts1228]

Now, I'll reserve judgement until I hear from Krauser.

[SemperFeist]

Cian must be crying into his beer. 

[Klomp]

2 minutes ago, SemperFeist said:

Cian must be crying into his beer. 

 

[SemperFeist]

I wonder if there is someone out there who keeps track of how many times he’s wrong in a month. 

Would be tough to do though, being blocked and all. 

[vikings209]

I'm really interested on the specifics with the contract. How the money works from year to year. Normally we front load the contracts to get out of them if need be, but because of our cap situation i wonder did we back load this one?

[Krauser]

The team obviously does want to run a 2 TE offense.

They couldn’t let Rudolph leave this year. Smith is a good prospect but he’s really young, and TEs often struggle as rookies. They would’ve had to use Morgan or Conklin as a starter.

I’m not sure they were too eager to keep him much longer than another year or two, but they would’ve been challenged to replace even next year (options would’ve been drafting another TE high and starting him as a rookie, or paying for a UFA probably not saving much vs keeping Rudolph).

So Rudolph did have leverage, and he used it. The price is close to market rate for what he might have expected as a UFA if he’d been one this year, only slightly discounted by virtue of the fact that the cap and thus the market will be higher by the time the deal actually kicks in in 2020.

It’s more money than I was hoping for — I would have liked to see $8M per year max — but I think the Vikings must have been willing to pay Rudolph for the continuity and leadership and for his role as a red zone target that they don’t really have an option to replace otherwise this year. 

Diggs/Thielen, Rudolph/Smith, Cook/Mattison should be a very strong set of playmakers for the offense. If Kubiak and Dennison can fix the running game, they should be a top 5-10 offense this year.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Krauser

[Krauser]

I’ll add that the guaranteed money matters more than the total money or AAV. The fact that the guarantee hasn’t been leaked means it may not be too impressive.

Given that they’re lowering his cap hit this year, and he’s signing well before any deadline like training camp opening, I assume Rudolph will be getting a decent signing bonus that will make this contract hard to get out of before year 3 (of the extension, meaning another 3 years including this one). But if the last 2 years are big salaries (say ~$11M), it could effectively be a $15M/2 deal with a dead cap hit around $6M to release him in 2022.

 

[SemperFeist]

 

[Cearbhall]

If there are not much guarantees, Rudolph may be a candidate for the pay cut or get cut offer after two years. Will be interesting to see the details.

[SemperFeist]