Tyler Forness talks about the Minnesota Vikings free agency approach, and recent comments by an NFL executive, who criticized what the team did.
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00:00The Minnesota Vikings have been widely praised for their free agency strategy, but was it
00:05deserved?
00:06One exact fires back and did not like what they did at all.
00:10Let's talk about why.
00:14The Minnesota Vikings had an excellent free agency.
00:18They filled all their needs, and not only did they fill them, they got some really talented
00:23football players to boot.
00:24They spent more money than just about any team in the National Football League in free
00:28agency, but they also had a lot to work with.
00:31It's over $63 million at the beginning of the free agency period.
00:35Now, they had needs on both sides of the football in the trenches, and they fortified them on
00:40both sides of the football with center Ryan Kelly, Ryker, Real Fries on offense, and then
00:45you had defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave.
00:48It was great moves, right?
00:50Plus, they're going to get two compensatory picks back.
00:53But the athletics Mike Sando, who is very plugged in and talks to a lot of executives, scouts,
00:57coaches, all that kind of stuff.
01:00He talked to people about every single team in the National Football League.
01:04One executive did not have a lot of nice things to say, and it's very interesting.
01:08We'll explain why it's interesting in a minute.
01:11But here's the quote.
01:12It's like the 2015 Colts all over again, signing older guys who have been hurt, who are on
01:17third or fourth contracts, one exec said.
01:20And he's talking about a team that added Trent Cole, Frank Gore, Kendall Langford, and Andre
01:24Johnson in free agency.
01:25You cannot build a team with old players.
01:28That same exec continued, especially old players who have been cut because they were hurt.
01:32Now, that's a very interesting one.
01:34And it's interesting for two reasons.
01:36One, the GM of that 2015 team, VP of Player Personnel, Ryan Gregson.
01:44Ryan Gregson, who's in the Vikings front office right now.
01:48Pretty impressive.
01:49The link is obvious for that reason.
01:51Gregson tried to build a team of stars.
01:56Well, sometimes when you build a team of stars in a free agency, it fizzles out.
02:00The way it's different with Quasi Opalmenza is he's trying to find advantages.
02:05One advantage he's found that has worked for him is by targeting players who were injured
02:09and trusting the medical staff to keep them uninjured.
02:13Andrew Van Ginkle, Blake Cashman are two prime examples.
02:18Cashman missed three games with what was described as a stir-toe injury.
02:21Van Ginkle missed like a half.
02:24They were kept pretty healthy all year long.
02:27And the Vikings think they can do that again.
02:30Will Fries broke his leg.
02:31Ryan Kelly's had injury issues all throughout his career.
02:34Jonathan Allen partially torn pectoral muscle.
02:36Javon Hargrave torn triceps.
02:37They think that they can fix those injury concerns.
02:42Prevent them from being a thing.
02:44And hey, we mentioned Van Ginkle and Cashman.
02:46We didn't even mention Aaron Jones who played all 17 games for just the third time in his career.
02:50He played every week.
02:53The Vikings think that they have an advantage here.
02:55Is it fair to criticize them for it?
02:57I think they don't understand why the Minnesota Vikings are doing it.
03:01They're looking at it from a spreadsheet perspective.
03:05Hey, you signed this guy.
03:06You gave him a total of $60 million over three years if he maxed it out in Jonathan Allen.
03:11But he's coming off a year where he only played half the games because of a torn pec.
03:15Doesn't make a lot of sense.
03:16When you contextualize it, it does.
03:19The Vikings are ready to roll.
03:21And they have a medical staff that can keep them healthy.
03:27It's a market edge that Quasio Vemensa has exploited before.
03:30And it's not always going to work.
03:32But if it works again, we could be talking about a Super Bowl.
03:34I'm Tyler Fornis with ADZ Sports.
03:38Skull Vikings.