Data says the Vikings should not extend Dalvin Cook

Recent data appears to indicate that a decision by the Minnesota Vikings to give their running back a lucrative deal likely won’t turn out well.

No one has ever questioned the amount of talent possessed by current Minnesota Vikings running back Dalvin Cook.

Cook is coming off his best season as a member of the Vikings that saw him rush for 1,135 yards and 13 touchdowns on 250 carries while also catching 53 passes for 519 yards. His 303 total touches were the most by a Minnesota running back since Adrian Peterson in 2015.

With Cook only having one year remaining on his current deal with the Vikings, there has been a lot of talk about him potentially getting an extension this offseason.

Minnesota loves the young running back and his great talent, but would paying him a big chunk of change for the next few years be in the team’s best interest? Well, there is some interesting data that would seem to say the Vikings should go ahead and let someone else give Cook a big-money contract.

According to Sharp Football Analysis, the majority of teams since 2011 who have had their top quarterback and running back take up at least 17.5 percent of their salary cap failed to achieve much success. In fact, of the 11 teams who fell into this category, nine of them ended up missing the playoffs with a losing record.

Currently, Kirk Cousins and Cook account for 16.5 percent of the Vikings’ projected salary cap in 2020. With Cousins’ cap number already being so high ($31 million), an extension that increases Cook’s cap hit to $4 million next season is all that it would take for these two to account for 17.5 percent of the team’s salary cap.

If Minnesota were to extend the running back this year, the large cap hits likely wouldn’t begin until 2021. Currently, Cook’s projected market value has him capable of getting a deal that would pay him more than $11 million per season.

Based on this projected value, if the Vikings ended up giving Cook and Cousins extensions before 2021, this duo would easily take up more than 17.5 percent of the team’s salary cap. And based on the data mentioned earlier, this wouldn’t be a good decision for Minnesota to make.

So then the decision becomes which player should the Vikings offer an extension to? Should they give Cousins more money to stick around or should they invest in their talented young running back?

More data compiled by Sharp Football Analysis appears to indicate that Minnesota would be better off giving an extension to their current quarterback instead of Cook.

Let’s say Cook was given an extension by the Vikings and his cap number for 2020 increased to about $14 million. This would have him taking up about seven percent of Minnesota’s projected salary cap for next season.

Data from Sharp Football Analysis shows that teams since 2011 who had their top running back accounting for at least seven percent of their salary cap failed to accomplish much during their respective season. Of the 17 teams that qualified for this, only three made the playoffs and none of these teams were able to advance in the postseason.

So going off of this data, if the Vikings are trying to figure out a way to keep both Cousins and Cook around for the next handful of years, they shouldn’t be.

If they can convince Cook to take less money, then Minnesota bringing him back might be an option if they don’t extend Cousins. But basically, this data further proves that shelling out a bunch of money to a running back is most likely going to produce disappointing results.