Minnesota tips the cap in its favor

By Jonathan Mohr  |   Thursday, March 13, 2008  |  Comments( 0 )

Minnesota Vikings
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Don’t blame Rob Brzezinski if the Minnesota Vikings don’t win in 2008.
You might not be able to pronounce his name – the first “z” is silent, or maybe it’s the second, just pick one and ignore it. Spelling it is even harder. But when each offseason rolls around and the Vikings are annually in position to pursue the pick of the free agent litter, you can thank the team’s vice president of football operations.
The Vikings wouldn’t have been able to sign Bernard Berrian, Madieu Williams, Thomas Tapeh and Maurice Hicks over the past couple of weeks - while also unsuccessfully attempting to lure one of the top defensive ends available - were in not for Brzezinski’s strategic management of the team’s salary cap these last few years. He obviously knows the NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement frontward and backward.
Seahawks fans are still talking about the “poison pill” contract Brzezinski authored that landed Steve Hutchinson in Minnesota. What many people don’t recall is that the Vikings also signed Chester Taylor, Ben Leber and Ryan Longwell that year, all of whom have served the club well.
The team’s 2007 free agent signings were less noteworthy (Bobby Wade, Visanthe Shiancoe, Vinny Ciurciu) but Minnesota also pursued Kevin Curtis, who reportedly took less money to sign with the Eagles, and tried to trade for Wes Welker that year.
As the 2007 season ended, the Vikings were in the middle of the pack when it came to their salary cap number, but by the time free agency began, the team had jumped into the top 5 in the league with more than $37 million to spend. That’s because Minnesota’s cap number was adjusted upward by more than $18 million.
Why? Because Brzezinski has mastered the art of building incentives into contracts that will likely never be met and, when they’re not, that money – which counts against the team’s cap the year the incentives are written – is credited to the team’s cap the following year.
Brzezinski isn’t the only NFL executive that knows how to do this – three-quarters of the teams in the NFL had their cap numbers adjusted upward – but he’s one of the most proficient at the technique.
And now that he has the Vikings ahead of the game, Brzezinski continues to position the team for next year’s cap and beyond – although there’s talk of a brewing labor dispute that could trigger suspension of the salary cap system as soon as the 2010 season.
The contract Berrian just signed allows more than half of his $16 million in guaranteed money to count against the team’s 2008 salary cap. Even given that fact, and the Vikings other three signings, the team still reportedly has about $19 million in cap space remaining. Some of that will be needed to sign this year’s draft class, but much of what’s left over can again be pushed into 2009 if those same techniques are employed, which, with Brzezinski’s track record, it’s safe to assume they will be.
So while the Vikings may or may not be successful on the field in 2008, fans can take some comfort in knowing Brzezinski is making sure the organization can continue to improve in the years to come.
He’s been doing his part; it’s time for some of the other team members to do theirs.
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About Jonathan Mohr

A lifelong Vikings fan, I live in the Twin Cities area (about a mile from Winter Park) and work as an editor at a boating magazine. As with all long-suffering Vikings fans, I patiently look forward to the day when Minnesota finally breaks through and wins a Super Bowl. Until then I eat my...
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