Why treading water needs to end for the Vikings sooner than later

At some point, the Minnesota Vikings are going to have to choose a different direction.

Treading water and being a slightly above-average team is the biggest mistake in the NFL yet the Minnesota Vikings continue to pursue that path. To kick off their 2022 season, the front office has begun that process once again by half-heartedly committing to Kirk Cousins at a cheaper (but still high!) cap hit.

The extension for Cousins left the Vikings in the same place that they were in 2021 with so many questions about the future. Extending Cousins long-term would have signaled a belief in the quarterback that the team could win with him and build around his strengths. Instead, Cousins signed a one-year extension and kicked more dead money down the road.

Minnesota, at some point, is going to have to get off of Cousins‘ money for one reason or another. Unfortunately, they gave him an extension that includes two void years that will likely include a dead cap penalty of $6.25 million in 2024 and 2025.

There is the argument that the cap is going to rise, so that dead cap likely won’t matter a ton, but the other side of that argument is that the Vikings are still wasting a higher cap allocation simply to pay Cousins not to be on the roster.

Cousins is good enough to keep the Vikings from the bottom of the NFL, but that may just be the problem. The front office and ownership are afraid to blow things up and start fresh, and that could hurt the franchise for a long time.

The Vikings have a history of treading water. Ownership does not want to have a down season or sacrifice a losing record, which is understandable from a competitive standpoint, but it severely limits the likelihood of ever reaching the top.