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1 hour ago, RpMc said:

Suh one year deal, Saffold multi-year contract. Small difference. 

Still also ignoring the fact that our own Darren Wolfson was sourced as saying Saffold chose a place he would want to live. Can’t blame him for choosing Nashville over Minneapolis, but Spielman still should have been able to pull it off. 

“The trouble with excuses is that they become inevitably difficult to believe after they’ve been used a couple of times.” ―Scott Spencer

There is always a price. Saffold would have come here for a good enough offer and I think that price is less than what the Vikings paid Anthony Barr. But that is just one case. Maybe it isn't true in this one case. However, we have years of data. Rick Spielman hasn't been able to take care of the obvious problem.

“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” ―George Washington Carver

“If you really want to do it, you do it. There are no excuses.” —Bruce Nauman

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” —Benjamin Franklin

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Cearbhall said:

Maybe it isn't true in this one case. However, we have years of data. Rick Spielman hasn't been able to take care of the obvious problem

A lot of posters are looking at things through the perspective of what the team can do right now to get better relative to FA signings.  So rehashing old mistakes in that light makes it seem like you're just saying old mistakes should be paid for by making new ones (overpaying mediocre linemen).

Criticism over failing to build a competent offensive line is fair, but right now it just looks like sour grapes

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25 minutes ago, Dolmonite26 said:

A lot of posters are looking at things through the perspective of what the team can do right now to get better relative to FA signings.  So rehashing old mistakes in that light makes it seem like you're just saying old mistakes should be paid for by making new ones (overpaying mediocre linemen).

Criticism over failing to build a competent offensive line is fair, but right now it just looks like sour grapes

Not FA in its entirety. Waynes could be traded for a high pick and if there is an offer on the table, that would present an opportunity to improve through the draft.

We're sitting at $7m in cap space with one guard on the roster in Danny Isidora. That's a problem.

We also need a QB2, WR3, RB2, Safety depth (losing two) and a K. That's several roster spots that will require spending FA dollars and not all can be addressed through the draft (what do we have 6 draft picks)?  

Edited by vikingsrule
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7 minutes ago, Dolmonite26 said:

A lot of posters are looking at things through the perspective of what the team can do right now to get better relative to FA signings.  So rehashing old mistakes in that light makes it seem like you're just saying old mistakes should be paid for by making new ones (overpaying mediocre linemen).

Criticism over failing to build a competent offensive line is fair, but right now it just looks like sour grapes

As far as rehashing old mistakes, I am not the one that brought up Boone, Remmers, and company. Others brought previous FA failures up iirc. I just agreed with them that the failures are solid evidence of Spielman's inability to resolve the problem.

As far as sour grapes, I am still holding out a sliver of hope that Rick will make a trade before I start calling for his firing next month. I do not believe that the Vikings cannot have a good offensive line. The cost does go up as options diminish. It was definitely possible to fix the offensive line this year a week ago. It may still be possible but the odds have gotten longer.

For me talking about failures of previous years is an explanation why excuses for a single case this year is not an excuse for the total failure. I don't blame Spielman for any single screw up but for the continual pattern of incompetence related to fixing the offensive line. Reflecting on the broader picture is to show that I was never expecting a one year fix or expecting any single move to solve the problem but this was the last chance I am willing to give him before I want to move onto a different man for the job. In the grand scheme, the excuses for this decision or that decision matter not. The results are what they are. And what they are is a damning indictment on Rick Spielman's inability to fix the offensive line.

I agree 100% with Mr @PrplChilPill when he says that an at least average offensive line is almost a requirement, but not the only requirement, to field a team able to win a championship. An inability to deal with the prerequisite is grounds for being declared unfit for the job and I am very close to determining that Spielman is unfit. He has another month though so I'll wait and see if he can make magic happen.

Straight up, if the Vikings go into the draft without an offensive line that looks like it even has a reasonable chance of being top 20 in the league I will want to see Rick Spielman fired. There are no excuses for that when offensive line has been costing the Vikings chances at winning a championship for years already.

If you have more patience than me, that is great. At some point a man being paid millions of dollars needs to be held accountable. How long you are willing to watch failure for the same reason with no signs of improvement is a personal decision. You probably have more years left than me. Only you can decide how long you are willing to be okay with someone running the show that has both continually failed at a key prerequisite and also shows no signs of even improving on their weakness. 

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33 minutes ago, vikingsrule said:

Not FA in its entirety. Waynes could be traded for a high pick and if there is an offer on the table, that would present an opportunity to improve through the draft.

We're sitting at $7m in cap space with one guard on the roster in Danny Isidora. That's a problem.

We also need a QB2, WR3, RB2, Safety depth (losing two) and a K. That's several roster spots that will require spending FA dollars and not all can be addressed through the draft (what do we have 6 draft picks)?  

8? 1-4, and 2 in the 6th and 7th i think. If we dont take 2 oline in the first 4 rounds (preferrably 3), then ill be disappointed on our attempt to fix it.  Honestly werent many free agents i like better than some that should be there in round 3.

Edited by Heavydan85
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1 hour ago, byuvike88 said:

@RpMc you seem to have a better handle on the comp picks. So if the Vikings sign an outside guard that wasn't cut, even if it's for less than 2 million or so, they lose the comp pick for Sheldon?

They still have to be a qualifying player. If the AAV isn’t high enough to qualify based on the other free agents signed, the team could still get a comp pick for Richardson. But comp picks are awarded for losing more, or better, free agents than you bring in. If you sign two qualifying fee agents, and lose two qualifying free agents, your only shot of getting a comp pick would be the NFL deeming that you lost a higher quality of players than you brought in and you could potentially gain a net loss compensatory pick. 

Edited by RpMc
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13 hours ago, RpMc said:

He's made "market value" moves that you've been calling for. There hasn't really been an example of an expensive free agent offensive lineman changing teams in recent memory that has ended up working out well for the team signing them away from their original team.

 

Andrew Whitworth. That's about it. 

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8 hours ago, Cearbhall said:

As far as rehashing old mistakes, I am not the one that brought up Boone, Remmers, and company. Others brought previous FA failures up iirc. I just agreed with them that the failures are solid evidence of Spielman's inability to resolve the problem.

As far as sour grapes, I am still holding out a sliver of hope that Rick will make a trade before I start calling for his firing next month. I do not believe that the Vikings cannot have a good offensive line. The cost does go up as options diminish. It was definitely possible to fix the offensive line this year a week ago. It may still be possible but the odds have gotten longer.

 

Offensive line play is terrible around the league. Statistically speaking, half the teams will have a "less than average" OL. So the odds aren't great to start with. Add in the fact that college linemen simply aren't as good or as prepared as they were 10-15 years ago, and D-linemen have become freaks of nature, and you only exacerbate the problem. Spielman has tried (and failed) to put together some semblance of an offensive line,  but like 15 other GMs around the league, that hasn't worked out well. He HAS invested in the position, like many other GMs, and it hasn't worked out well. However, he's put together a roster that rivals nearly every other roster in the league.

Elflein looked to be making good progress prior to his injury. O'Neill looks to be a home run. We've found a couple of other depth pieces (Hill, Easton) here and there. If he hits once or twice in the draft this year, we'll be in pretty good shape. 

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8 hours ago, Cearbhall said:

If you have more patience than me, that is great. At some point a man being paid millions of dollars needs to be held accountable. How long you are willing to watch failure for the same reason with no signs of improvement is a personal decision. You probably have more years left than me. Only you can decide how long you are willing to be okay with someone running the show that has both continually failed at a key prerequisite and also shows no signs of even improving on their weakness

I've kind of just moved on from making this team's success such a priority lol. Just how I've deal with the gut punches in guess

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17 minutes ago, wcblack34 said:

Elflein looked to be making good progress prior to his injury. O'Neill looks to be a home run. We've found a couple of other depth pieces (Hill, Easton) here and there. If he hits once or twice in the draft this year, we'll be in pretty good shape. 

You have much more optimism in the Vikings fielding a competent offensive line than I am.  Elflein was a mediocre center his rookie season.  However, in the grand scheme of line play in the NFL mediocre is pretty damn good.  Yet, since his injury, he's been dreadful. I'm willing to give him another year to see what the team has in him...but the Vikings needs someone competent to back him up.  O'Neill had a very good rookie year.  Yet, the Vikings have already talked about moving him to the left side of the line with Reiff playing guard.  I think that move would be a disaster.  There really aren't any guards on the roster presently.  Easton is a free agent.  If he passes another teams physical, I expect that he will be playing elsewhere.  So, this team needs to do a lot in this draft.  Two starting guards, possibly a center and a left tackle that can take over for Reiff in the future.  And the Vikings still need to find a 3rd receiver, another tight end, another running back, a defensive tackle and a kicker...That's a lot to accomplish in one draft.  So, even thought things are tight with the salary cap, you'll pardon some of us having concern that little to no effort has been made to try and improve the line in FA thus far, or in making trades.

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11 minutes ago, Virginia Viking said:

you'll pardon some of us having concern that little to no effort has been made to try and improve the line in FA thus far, or in making trades.

I just don’t understand it to be honest.

We literally picked up the #1 free agent LT (could argue Ricky Wagner, but it was pretty much 1a vs 1b) and paid solid money for him because that’s what you do with free agents

We signed the #4 ish RT and also paid him pretty well.

We traded for a LG that actually played fairly well but got injured.

 

Now we say we don’t do anything to help this offensive line in FA, but just a couple years ago we did. And it didn’t turn out well, neither did any of the other tackles we could have picked up.

 

Now to the draft, we took the best Center in the draft, invested in him. Looked to be improved...... aaaannd another injury.

 

then last year we drafted a new shiny RT, and moved out old RT inside on the hopes he could work out there, well our new RT just let up 0 sacks.

 

we say we don’t focus on the line, but maybe Rick is just taking a new approach, probably one that should have been done long ago, but just ignoring these big contract offensive free agent lineman that very rarely pan out, and just draft them!

 

Yes, we didn’t get Staffold or Paradis, but we also didn’t end up over paying them.

 

even if we signed Paradis we would still be looking for 2 new guards. 

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12 hours ago, RpMc said:

I swear something like this just happened with another player that is Vikings related, but it can’t be true. Money talks and is all that matters. 

Remember those times that Spielman offered Mike Wallace and Alshon Jeffery more money and they chose Miami and Philadelphia, respectively?

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