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Vikings placed the franchise tag on SS Anthony Harris.
This comes as a surprise given Minnesota's cap issues. The Vikings cleared money by extending Kirk Cousins and releasing Xavier Rhodes and Linval Joseph last week, allowing them to fit Harris for now. It's possible Harris is shopped in a tag-and-trade situation. Harris would make $11 million under the tag if he stays put.

Not sure if I see a trade here but either way, I'm excited we're finding a way to keep him

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:37 am Vikings placed the franchise tag on SS Anthony Harris.
This comes as a surprise given Minnesota's cap issues. The Vikings cleared money by extending Kirk Cousins and releasing Xavier Rhodes and Linval Joseph last week, allowing them to fit Harris for now. It's possible Harris is shopped in a tag-and-trade situation. Harris would make $11 million under the tag if he stays put.

Not sure if I see a trade here but either way, I'm excited we're finding a way to keep him

Same, hopefully we keep him too. Cousin's contract definitely made it possible. We'll see how it shakes out.

Was pumped when I saw this. The highest graded safety tandem stays intact. Thought Zimmer was telegraphing his departure in press conferences at the combine. With the potential turnover at CB keeping Harris is huge. The Kirk savings were spent here.

Dames wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:41 am

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:37 am Vikings placed the franchise tag on SS Anthony Harris.
This comes as a surprise given Minnesota's cap issues. The Vikings cleared money by extending Kirk Cousins and releasing Xavier Rhodes and Linval Joseph last week, allowing them to fit Harris for now. It's possible Harris is shopped in a tag-and-trade situation. Harris would make $11 million under the tag if he stays put.

Not sure if I see a trade here but either way, I'm excited we're finding a way to keep him

Same, hopefully we keep him too. Cousin's contract definitely made it possible. We'll see how it shakes out.

Right and I feel like this is what the average fan doesnt understand. They see an extension for Cousins and guaranteed money. What they dont realize is that it just saved us $10 million and basically allowed us to keep Harris.

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:44 am

Dames wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:41 am
Same, hopefully we keep him too. Cousin's contract definitely made it possible. We'll see how it shakes out.

Right and I feel like this is what the average fan doesnt understand. They see an extension for Cousins and guaranteed money. What they dont realize is that it just saved us $10 million and basically allowed us to keep Harris.

I think the average fan probably understands that just fine. It's pretty basic salary cap stuff.

Mothman wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 12:23 pm

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:44 am

Right and I feel like this is what the average fan doesnt understand. They see an extension for Cousins and guaranteed money. What they dont realize is that it just saved us $10 million and basically allowed us to keep Harris.

I think the average fan probably understands that just fine. It's pretty basic salary cap stuff.

Check out social media posts that say we extended Cousins and look at the comments. Flooded with fans saying how bad he is, how dumb the extension was, how he's money hungry and selfish, etc. Those are the people I am referring to.

Mothman wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 12:23 pm

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:44 am

Right and I feel like this is what the average fan doesnt understand. They see an extension for Cousins and guaranteed money. What they dont realize is that it just saved us $10 million and basically allowed us to keep Harris.

I think the average fan probably understands that just fine. It's pretty basic salary cap stuff.

No, it actually isn't.

The reality of the situation is that the Vikings could have created ten million in cap by restructuring any number of players and converting salary to signing bonus. Without the player even agreeing to it. Whether it was Diggs, Barr, Hunter, Kendricks, it didn't matter.

The Vikings chose Cousins in an attempt to make the signing more palatable.

We now have the 2nd lowest cap space in 2021, before signing any players to fill the 6 starting holes that exist on the defense. That limits what we can do in free agency this year, it doesn't help it. Any multi year contracts will be limited in how much the Vikings can back fill, decreasing the number of quality free agents we can keep or bring in.

THAT is what the average fan is missing with this extension.

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 12:38 pm

Mothman wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 12:23 pm

I think the average fan probably understands that just fine. It's pretty basic salary cap stuff.

Check out social media posts that say we extended Cousins and look at the comments. Flooded with fans saying how bad he is, how dumb the extension was, how he's money hungry and selfish, etc. Those are the people I am referring to.

The extension was dumb, but Cousins just did what every QB does, get every penny they can from teams that fear taking a chance on a young QB versus an established vet. He isn't money hungry or selfish, he is just normal.

StumpHunter wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:03 pm

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 12:38 pm

Check out social media posts that say we extended Cousins and look at the comments. Flooded with fans saying how bad he is, how dumb the extension was, how he's money hungry and selfish, etc. Those are the people I am referring to.

The extension was dumb, but Cousins just did what every QB does, get every penny they can from teams that fear taking a chance on a young QB versus an established vet. He isn't money hungry or selfish, he is just normal.

Not sure how it was dumb when it was exactly what brought Harris back to us.

Anthony Harris and Harrison Smith are best safety duo in the league. Zero reason to get rid of him.

This is huge.

The Vikings never use the franchise tag.

With some of this cap space being freed up (Joseph, Rhodes, Cousins, Griffen) I hope that means we're serious about improving the O-line. Because tagging Harris tells me that management thinks this team can win the Super Bowl. They'd better start improving that O-line and shoring up the rest of the d-backfield, or they'll be looking dumber than a bag of hammers.

Rhodes Closed wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:34 pm Anthony Harris and Harrison Smith are best safety duo in the league. Zero reason to get rid of him.

There are two schools of thought about why some advocated letting Harris walk.

1. Zimmer's system is easy on safeties. Essentially it makes safeties look really good. Look at Andrew Sendejo.
2. Playing alongside Harrison Smith also makes you look really good.

The though was (and I'm not saying I agree with it ... this is what the so-called experts have been saying) that any safety with decent talent will flourish in the Vikings' system. So it was believed by some that you could bring in a reasonably talented guy at a much lower price and replace Harris with no trouble.

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:12 pm

StumpHunter wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:03 pm
The extension was dumb, but Cousins just did what every QB does, get every penny they can from teams that fear taking a chance on a young QB versus an established vet. He isn't money hungry or selfish, he is just normal.

Not sure how it was dumb when it was exactly what brought Harris back to us.

The two are unrelated, except that Cousins massive initial contract made it difficult to extend him for much cheaper last year.


As I said they could have gotten that 10 million in a bunch of different ways that did not involve extending Cousins, and that would have had the same net affect: 10 million moved from this year to the next.

Maelstrom88 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 11:42 am Was pumped when I saw this. The highest graded safety tandem stays intact. Thought Zimmer was telegraphing his departure in press conferences at the combine. With the potential turnover at CB keeping Harris is huge. The Kirk savings were spent here.

Oh lord. I hope they didn't give Cousins another year in order to retain Harris for one year. I really hope this is a franchise/trade kind of deal and they use that money at another position, or to shore up young players so we don't have a full rebuild in two years.

StumpHunter wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 1:03 pm

Pondering Her Percy wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 12:38 pm

Check out social media posts that say we extended Cousins and look at the comments. Flooded with fans saying how bad he is, how dumb the extension was, how he's money hungry and selfish, etc. Those are the people I am referring to.

The extension was dumb, but Cousins just did what every QB does, get every penny they can from teams that fear taking a chance on a young QB versus an established vet. He isn't money hungry or selfish, he is just normal.

The extension was smart. That is a pretty good deal for a top 10 QB in todays market so Cousins wasn't even greedy. He probably could have got more.