The last time the Minnesota Vikings met the Jacksonville Jaguars, it was during the 2018 preseason. The game itself was forgettable, but the days leading up to it weren’t.
The Vikings and Jaguars scheduled a series of highly-anticipated joint practices between the two squads, pitting two of the league’s deepest rosters against each other in the August heat. After all, the two teams had nearly faced off in the Super Bowl six months prior.
Oh, how things have changed, not just for the Vikings and Jaguars, but for the other 2017 elites. The four semifinalists from that season — the Jaguars, Vikings, New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles — are a combined 14-29-1 in 2020.
The Jaguars have bottomed out and fired their general manager. The Vikings are struggling to reach the .500 mark. The Patriots dynasty is all but over. And the Eagles are on the verge of a coach and quarterback change.
The precipitous dropoffs are further evidence that high-end success is fleeting in the National Football League. The Patriots proved that notion wrong for the better part of two decades, but even the most dynastic of franchises isn’t immune as they sit on the outside of the AFC playoff picture.
New England lost in the Super Bowl to Philadelphia three years ago 41-35, a high-scoring affair at U.S. Bank Stadium that showcased playmakers all over the field. Fast forward to the present day and both squads are severely challenged on offense with a dearth of skill players and instability at the quarterback position. They both rank in the bottom 10 in points scored, passing yardage and giveaways.
While the 1-10 Jaguars have multi-faceted issues, they resemble the Vikings in that their biggest dive has come on defense. In 2017, Minnesota and Jacksonville were first and second in points allowed, first and second in passing defense and first (Vikings) and fourth (Jaguars) in third-down defense. Minnesota was second in rushing defense. The Jaguars were second in takeaways.
Fewer than half of the starters on defense in the 2017 NFC Championship Game have played a down this year for the Vikings, and only two have for the Jaguars from their AFC Championship Game roster. Both teams are bottom 10 in points allowed, pass defense and take-give, while the Jaguars are fourth-worst in rushing defense (the Vikings are 19th).
Essentially, the bills came due for all four of these clubs, and while they responded to financial strain in different ways, they all find themselves in a similar boat. The Vikings spent liberally in the two seasons after their near Super Bowl appearance, extending massive contracts to Danielle Hunter, Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks, Stefon Diggs, Adam Thielen, Kyle Rudolph and Kirk Cousins to keep their Super Bowl window open. They continually avoided a cap catastrophe with back-loaded deals and restructured contracts until the reckoning came in 2020 free agency where the Vikings said goodbye to half a dozen defensive starters. They’ve remained competitive, but are experiencing the rigors of an on-the-fly rebuild.
The Jaguars made their mistake of hitching their wagon to the wrong quarterbacks. In 2018 they stuck with Blake Bortles, who sputtered in a 5-11 season, and in 2019 they awarded a long-term deal to Nick Foles, who got hurt in Week 1. The losses mounted, as did expenses, and defensive stalwarts got disgruntled. Calais Campbell, A.J. Bouye, Jalen Ramsey and Yannick Ngakoue were traded, while Malik Jackson was released.
Even the tight-lipped Bill Belichick cited the salary cap as a reason for the Patriots’ decline in 2020, saying on a radio interview: “This is kind of the year that we’ve taken to, I would say, adjust our cap from the spending that we’ve had in accumulation of prior years. We just haven’t been able to have the kind of depth on our roster that we’ve had in some other years. That’s provided more opportunity for younger players. So it’s a combination of all the reasons.” The Patriots are also paying figuratively for a dearth of high draft picks over the past five years and getting little out of first-round selections Sony Michel, Isaiah Wynn or N’Keal Harry in 2018-19.
But none of these groups have it as bad as the Eagles, who are fledgling at 3-7-1 in the dreadful NFC East. Perhaps that’s the price for winning a Super Bowl, as the Eagles did in 2017, but a front office executive would hope to at least be winning more games when facing Philadelphia’s impending cap predicament. The Eagles are an unfathomable $63 million over next year’s projected cap, per Spotrac, having taken an approach to spending even more aggressive than the Vikings. The struggling Carson Wentz will have his salary escalate above $34 million in 2021, and they are on the hook for eight-figure deals to three pass-catchers (Alshon Jeffery, DeSean Jackson and Zach Ertz) who have combined for just 338 yards this year. They have five eight-figure deals on the defensive line alone (!), two on the offensive line and another at cornerback. Prepare for a roster gutting, Philly.
Some might argue the Jaguars are in the most enviable position of the four. They’ve slashed costs and set themselves up (and quite possibly their next coach) with a probable top-three draft pick after outright tanking and avoiding the purgatory of a .500 season. Meanwhile, the Vikings, Patriots and Eagles have expensive rosters but aren’t getting enough bang for their buck in the wins department.
It’s all part of the circle of life in the NFL, a cyclical league where parity is valued over dynasty. And that’s how it should be.
