When I heard that the Minnesota Vikings signed Dalvin Cook to a five-year contract extension last offseason I started thinking about the future of the team. It’s common for a team to lock down their star for the long term, but what will it look like when Cook’s contract is up? That’s something I’ve been dwelling on all year.
The contract expires in 2026, but will certainly be voided, traded or extended before then. That’s why after looking at the contracts and ages of the players on the Vikings’ roster, I determined that they are currently facing a four-year window to make it to the Super Bowl before a rebuild is necessary.
We have never seen a full rebuild over the seven seasons that Mike Zimmer has coached the Vikings, and it’s something I love about him as a coach. Minnesota has always been competitive under him, and it shows with more playoff appearances than losing seasons and two division titles in the brutal NFC North. Rick Spielman and Zimmer are good at tinkering and have not yet needed to go full rebuild mode, but the time may be coming. And I don’t expect a Zimmer departure anytime soon.
So why a four-year window? Because of the sheer amount of players who will be on their last year under contract and a couple of other key players who will likely be gone at that time regardless of their contract status.
Here is a quick list of just the defensive players whose contracts will expire in 2024: D.J. Wonnum, Cameron Dantzler, Michael Pierce, Eric Kendricks, Anthony Barr, and Danielle Hunter. Now take that with a grain of salt because obviously some of these guys will be extended by then. But that’s not the only reason I’m concerned about this timeline.
In four years Barr, Kendricks, and Pierce will all be 32 years old. Four years is still far away so things will change and new players will come into the fold. Still, my concern is nobody is taking jobs from those guys anytime soon, and I have to imagine there will be a very sudden shift as opposed to a gradual exit simply due to the closeness of age among these guys. That’s the biggest concern I have for the departure of the original defense Zimmer built in Minnesota.
I haven’t even brought up the fact that Harrison Smith is already 32 and will likely be gone by then. So will multiple offensive players.
I predict that Kirk Cousins will be gone. I am a Cousins truther myself and could see him being a guy that leads a team to perennial success, but realistically I think he or the Vikings will move on before that happens.
Adam Thielen will be 34 and Cook will be 29.
I don’t see a Zimmer team where Cook isn’t the centerpiece of the offense, barring injury, so he will likely be worn down and moved into a timeshare mode by this time. Cook will still have two years on his contract four years down the line so that will hopefully not be a regret for the team knowing Cook’s injury history and physical running style.
So, what’s the point?
The Vikings need to sell out over the next four years for a Super Bowl whether it’s this year or in three. I know that there will have been moves made by the front office that I can’t foresee, but with the sheer amount of defensive pieces Zimmer has personally drafted or groomed, he’ll be looking at losing for the first time in his career if there’s no sense of urgency. I want to see a championship run with an elite defense he has proven he can build.
As a Zimmer fan, I would be bitter if the remnants of his original Vikings defense don’t have one last playoff streak in it.
