The Ant-Man Franchised

[Guest]

Glad to know that the best safety tandem in the NFL will be patrolling the defensive backfield for the Vikings in 2020!!

[whitehops]

we're one step closer to getting a little clarity on the long-term situation but this whole process has been weird. 

first, we used the franchise tag for the first time when you hope to never have to use it. then, it looked like we were shopping harris between the combine/draft, zimmer said safety isn't an important position in his defense (referencing the harris situation), etc. now he signed it and we're negotiating a long-term deal. 

 

to me it just looks like they really don't want to pay harris, which makes sense given how easily they've been able to find quality players at the position. why on earth would you pay harris $12 million+ AAV to play safety at an elite level when they've been able to find late-round/UDFA guys to play at a high level for peanuts. they drafted harrison hand in the fifth round this year so they might already have anthony harris' replacement on the roster. 

[NoDakViking]

Is there any difference in Comp pick value if we let him walk after his one year on the franchise tag as opposed to if we would have let him walk this year?

[RpMc]

5 minutes ago, NoDakViking said:

Is there any difference in Comp pick value if we let him walk after his one year on the franchise tag as opposed to if we would have let him walk this year?

He's still well-short of the "Alan Faneca" rule that caps a compensatory pick at a 5th rounder for players with 10 or more accrued seasons.  Harris just finished his 4th, and would have five after this year.

[whitehops]

Also: I'm sure both Anthony Harris and Justin Simmons are playing a waiting game to see who signs first and sets the market. Simmons is younger but they are both in line for their first big deals and both played an elite level last season (PFF's #1 and #2 ranked safeties, I believe). 

[swede700]

11 minutes ago, whitehops said:

we're one step closer to getting a little clarity on the long-term situation but this whole process has been weird. 

first, we used the franchise tag for the first time when you hope to never have to use it. then, it looked like we were shopping harris between the combine/draft, zimmer said safety isn't an important position in his defense (referencing the harris situation), etc. now he signed it and we're negotiating a long-term deal. 

 

to me it just looks like they really don't want to pay harris, which makes sense given how easily they've been able to find quality players at the position. why on earth would you pay harris $12 million+ AAV to play safety at an elite level when they've been able to find late-round/UDFA guys to play at a high level for peanuts. they drafted harrison hand in the fifth round this year so they might already have anthony harris' replacement on the roster. 

I don't they're going to end up paying him $12M+ to play safety.  They might, but even if that's the case, it'll likely be backloaded, so they wouldn't be paying him a huge amount until later in the deal, at which point he'd have to take a pay cut to stay.  Since he's 28 years old now, I imagine he'd probably average somewhere around Harry's deal for at least the first 3 years.  And in the end, Harrison Hand might end up replacing the current Harrison as he appears to be more suited to playing in the box than Harris is.

[whitehops]

2 minutes ago, swede700 said:

I don't they're going to end up paying him $12M+ to play safety.  They might, but even if that's the case, it'll likely be backloaded, so they wouldn't be paying him a huge amount until later in the deal, at which point he'd have to take a pay cut to stay.  Since he's 28 years old now, I imagine he'd probably average somewhere around Harry's deal for at least the first 3 years.  And in the end, Harrison Hand might end up replacing the current Harrison as he appears to be more suited to playing in the box than Harris is.

the top safeties are getting $14 million AAV, why would Harris sign for much less than that when he's played at an elite level for the past two years? Him being 28 and not getting a big contract yet is probably even more incentive to get as much as he can with whatever contract he signs. 

[swede700]

1 minute ago, whitehops said:

the top safeties are getting $14 million AAV, why would Harris sign for much less than that when he's played at an elite level for the past two years? Him being 28 and not getting a big contract yet is probably even more incentive to get as much as he can with whatever contract he signs. 

I don't really know what his motive could be, maybe he's looking to get as much as he can, but maybe he's also just looking for long-term security and is willing to take a little less to get that, along with some other LTBE bonuses that could push him into that.  It's all about structure, it's not necessarily just about the average salary.  I don't know what the structures are of guys like Eddie Jackson and Kevin Byard...I know the Honey Badger got a short-term contract, so certainly he was just looking to make the highest amount of money he could, as he'll likely be out the door after this year since Mahomes will need to get paid and would cost nearly $20M against the cap if he were around in 2021.  

[Cearbhall]

2 hours ago, NoDakViking said:

Is there any difference in Comp pick value if we let him walk after his one year on the franchise tag as opposed to if we would have let him walk this year?

The comp pick value will be determined mostly by the value of the contract Harris signs with another team, if he were to sign with another team. There are some other items that influence it too, but they aren't as important and they also are not directly related to whether he walked after this year versus next year. There may be an indirect relation if he is to play significantly better this year than next but I don't think he is at the age where that is something you worry a lot about.

The main different between this year and next year is that the Vikings may have different free agent gains/losses next year that could cancel out a Harris loss. This year, his loss would not have been cancelled out.

Also, the obvious difference is that the compensatory pick the team gets would be a year later' a pick a year later is generally values less than an earlier pick usually by at least 32 picks. For example, a 2022 pick at the beck of the third round would be valued in the 2021 draft approximately like a 2021 pick in the back of the fourth round. That is a very acceptable cost for a year of high end play at one of your starting positions. The real cost is the salary and the risk of injury.

[NoDakViking]

18 minutes ago, Cearbhall said:

The comp pick value will be determined mostly by the value of the contract Harris signs with another team, if he were to sign with another team. There are some other items that influence it too, but they aren't as important and they also are not directly related to whether he walked after this year versus next year. There may be an indirect relation if he is to play significantly better this year than next but I don't think he is at the age where that is something you worry a lot about.

The main different between this year and next year is that the Vikings may have different free agent gains/losses next year that could cancel out a Harris loss. This year, his loss would not have been cancelled out.

Also, the obvious difference is that the compensatory pick the team gets would be a year later' a pick a year later is generally values less than an earlier pick usually by at least 32 picks. For example, a 2022 pick at the beck of the third round would be valued in the 2021 draft approximately like a 2021 pick in the back of the fourth round. That is a very acceptable cost for a year of high end play at one of your starting positions. The real cost is the salary and the risk of injury.

Ok.  I wasn't sure if using a franchise tag before allowing him to walk affected the formula.

[wcblack34]

I love the idea of having two elite Safeties. It's an undervalued position. However, I also have trepidation about paying two elite Safeties; especially since Harris has only done it for one year. If we had a QB on a rookie contract, I'd be all for it. That isn't the case, so I think that either Harrison or Harris will be gone after this season. 

[whitehops]

1 hour ago, wcblack34 said:

I love the idea of having two elite Safeties. It's an undervalued position.

With the whole Anthony Harris contract situation, I've been thinking about this lately (the value of safeties relative to Zimmer's defense). There are a few different things that have made me especially think about it...

1. Zimmer's comments pre-draft that safety is lower on the list of importance:

Quote

“I love Anthony... but if you put up the positions most important on defense it’s probably not going to be safety”

2. The huge discrepancy between our allocation of assets. We have spent a handful of round 1-2 picks on corners, while consistently filling in the safety spot with late round picks, UDFAs and cheap free agents. 

3. PFF grading. Here is a summary from our very own Krauser:

The one that really stands out to me is Rhodes in 2017. He was all-pro, known league-wide as a shutdown, shadow corner and iirc advanced stats supported that reputation. Yet he only got a 76.2 from PFF, while Sendejo got a higher grade that season.

 

People who have more knowledge of defensive schemes could probably come up with better theories but mine is that Zimmer simply asks more of his corners. His corners have to be at least average in press coverage, off coverage, man, zone, etc. and also be able to play the run. You can pretty much only find that kind of talent in the early rounds. A stark contrast would be the Seahawks, who famously de-prioritize the position and almost exclusively spend round 3 or later picks on the position. With their cover 3 scheme they just need tall/long and fast corners to protect the boundaries. In that scheme, if you fit that bill and you repeatedly succeed covering the same zone the majority of plays then you are likely going to receive a good PFF grade. On the flip side, Zimmer's corners have much more varied assignments which could lead to lower grades if they have more reps doing something that is a relative weakness.

 

For safety, I know we play a bunch of cover 2, which doesn't ask as much of the safeties as say, the single-high safety in a cover 3 scheme (Seahawks are an example there again). The single-high safety has to be able to cover sideline to sideline and also cover a great deal of distance to help out in the run game. In cover 2 the safeties only have to cover half the field. 

So maybe scheme has a lot to do with it? Corners having more difficult assignments would be an explanation to why our corners consistently have lower grades compared to our safeties. 

 

Also, I know there has been some speculation with us transitioning to a 4-3 under front and also playing more cover 3 (we played more zone last season and our new coaches have experience in cover 3 defenses) but given the draft capital spent on Gladney and Dantzler and their experience in college playing many different coverages, I'd expect us to go back to more of what Zimmer has done pre-2019. There's probably a better thread for this rant but Anthony Harris' news is likely the only new thing we'll have to talk about for a while so...

Edited May 18, 2020 by whitehops

[vike daddy]

12 minutes ago, whitehops said:

We have spent a handful of round 1-2 picks on corners, while consistently filling in the safety spot with late round picks, UDFAs and cheap free agents. 

didn't we trade UP to get Harrison Smith?

Edited May 18, 2020 by vike daddy

[whitehops]

2 minutes ago, vike daddy said:

didn't we trade UP to get Harrison Smith?

Leslie Frazier was the coach at the time and running a completely different defense but yes, we traded up to get Harrison Smith.

[perrynoid]

8 hours ago, wcblack34 said:

I love the idea of having two elite Safeties. It's an undervalued position. However, I also have trepidation about paying two elite Safeties; especially since Harris has only done it for one year. If we had a QB on a rookie contract, I'd be all for it. That isn't the case, so I think that either Harrison or Harris will be gone after this season. 

Perhaps the teams willingness to place the tag on Harris is due to uncertainty at the CB position?  With this uncertainty, it might pay to have two elite safeties in the backfield to minimize mistakes, and to make the overall backfield that much better?  In another season, in which there were little to no turnover at CB, the team might have just let him walk, and drafted his replacement.