Geno Atkins

[Ash Ketchum]

32 years old.

Obvious Zimmer connection and plays a position of need.

Many people saying the 2022 crop of interior linemen is much better at the top than this year.

One year deal? Yay or nay?

[RubeTube]

32 years old.

Obvious Zimmer connection and plays a position of need.

Many people saying the 2022 crop of interior linemen is much better at the top than this year.

One year deal? Yay or nay?

No. He hardly played when healthy for a terrible team last year and then got hurt.

[Ash Ketchum]

32 years old.

Obvious Zimmer connection and plays a position of need.

Many people saying the 2022 crop of interior linemen is much better at the top than this year.

One year deal? Yay or nay?

No. He hardly played when healthy for a terrible team last year and then got hurt.

He was hurt before the season started, but wasn’t placed on IR until December.

Maybe he is washed. But his lack of playing time last year sounds like it was injury related, not necessarily performance.

[Tommy_Hawk]

Is he better than Shamar Stephen? Then yes.

[hategreenticemase]

Is he better than Shamar Stephen? Then yes.

For God sakes the barometer of whether we should bring a guy in fricken ain't "is he better than a piece of crap who is a no brainer cut"? Stephen is a very overpaid and completely underperforming piece of poop.

Its that thinking, and "let's bring in Kline, he has to better than Compton" and "ya Elf went backwards but if we move him from C to G he still has to be way better than Remmers" is another contributing factor to 10 years of dogshit OL performance.

Is he a quality performer? Can he start the full year? Can we get him at a price to create value if he stays healthy. Can he stay healthy? Those are your barometers and I don't have any idea where he is at at this stage of his career. But Zim like knows and if he wanted him and he is affordable seems like a good low risk move.

[Beef Supreme]

You kick the tires. Sure. You don’t break the bank.

[Angry Waters]

With what the cap seems to be settling at, I don't see any reason why both Reiff and Barr can't be on the opening day roster next year. So, the "Geno Atkins" of the NFL world are who I expect the Vikes to be targeting at DT, S, G, etc... Hopefully hit on 14 and another draft pick or two, and there's your 2021 Minnesota Vikings.

[Head Coach]

At one point of his career, Geno was one if not the best interior pass rusher in the game.
I'm sure he still has a little something left and would be a great addition for a situational role, but to rely on him for a full time gig probably isn't going to end well.
For that reason, he would be better off on the Browns or another team that already has pass rushing pieces to surround him.

[Tommy_Hawk]

Is he better than Shamar Stephen? Then yes.

For God sakes the barometer of whether we should bring a guy in fricken ain't "is he better than a piece of crap who is a no brainer cut"? Stephen is a very overpaid and completely underperforming piece of poop.

Its that thinking, and "let's bring in Kline, he has to better than Compton" and "ya Elf went backwards but if we move him from C to G he still has to be way better than Remmers" is another contributing factor to 10 years of dogshit OL performance.

Is he a quality performer? Can he start the full year? Can we get him at a price to create value if he stays healthy. Can he stay healthy? Those are your barometers and I don't have any idea where he is at at this stage of his career. But Zim like knows and if he wanted him and he is affordable seems like a good low risk move.

Haha, it's alarming how many seasons Stephen has been on the roster for the amount of output he gives. He's a late round draft pick so good for him for sticking around but I think that's more on the Vikings organization. The only time he wasn't here is when Richardson was signed.

[hategreenticemase]

Is he better than Shamar Stephen? Then yes.

For God sakes the barometer of whether we should bring a guy in fricken ain't "is he better than a piece of crap who is a no brainer cut"? Stephen is a very overpaid and completely underperforming piece of poop.

Its that thinking, and "let's bring in Kline, he has to better than Compton" and "ya Elf went backwards but if we move him from C to G he still has to be way better than Remmers" is another contributing factor to 10 years of dogshit OL performance.

Is he a quality performer? Can he start the full year? Can we get him at a price to create value if he stays healthy. Can he stay healthy? Those are your barometers and I don't have any idea where he is at at this stage of his career. But Zim like knows and if he wanted him and he is affordable seems like a good low risk move.

Haha, it's alarming how many seasons Stephen has been on the roster for the amount of output he gives. He's a late round draft pick so good for him for sticking around but I think that's more on the Vikings organization. The only time he wasn't here is when Richardson was signed.

If you want to be alarmed go look at the salary the fucker has bled. Not sure how I missed it earlier but when started messing around on spotrac for 2021, I about shit seeing his number. What a joke.

[Beef Supreme]

For God sakes the barometer of whether we should bring a guy in fricken ain't "is he better than a piece of crap who is a no brainer cut"? Stephen is a very overpaid and completely underperforming piece of poop.

Its that thinking, and "let's bring in Kline, he has to better than Compton" and "ya Elf went backwards but if we move him from C to G he still has to be way better than Remmers" is another contributing factor to 10 years of dogshit OL performance.

Is he a quality performer? Can he start the full year? Can we get him at a price to create value if he stays healthy. Can he stay healthy? Those are your barometers and I don't have any idea where he is at at this stage of his career. But Zim like knows and if he wanted him and he is affordable seems like a good low risk move.

Haha, it's alarming how many seasons Stephen has been on the roster for the amount of output he gives. He's a late round draft pick so good for him for sticking around but I think that's more on the Vikings organization. The only time he wasn't here is when Richardson was signed.

If you want to be alarmed go look at the salary the fucker has bled. Not sure how I missed it earlier but when started messing around on spotrac for 2021, I about shit seeing his number. What a joke.

Stephen should have been treated just like Jayron Kearse. Late round pick that can provide good depth for a very small price. If he looks to be more than that, great! But neither did. Once their contract is up, YOU LET THEM GO AND REPLACE THEM WITH ANOTHER LATE-ROUND GUY!!! We did exactly that with Jayron. He gave us capable depth at S along with good special teams play for a number of years. We saw him enough to know he didn't have much more to offer than that. When his contract was up, we let Detroit sign him to a $3M/year contract and let him go and drafted Josh Metellus to be the new Jayron Kearse for next to nothing. That's what you should do. That's what we should have done with Shamar Stephen. But we didn't. And that was stupid.

[Da Gas Man]

As is always the question: Cost?

[hategreenticemase]

Haha, it's alarming how many seasons Stephen has been on the roster for the amount of output he gives. He's a late round draft pick so good for him for sticking around but I think that's more on the Vikings organization. The only time he wasn't here is when Richardson was signed.

If you want to be alarmed go look at the salary the fucker has bled. Not sure how I missed it earlier but when started messing around on spotrac for 2021, I about shit seeing his number. What a joke.

Stephen should have been treated just like Jayron Kearse. Late round pick that can provide good depth for a very small price. If he looks to be more than that, great! But neither did. Once their contract is up, YOU LET THEM GO AND REPLACE THEM WITH ANOTHER LATE-ROUND GUY!!! We did exactly that with Jayron. He gave us capable depth at S along with good special teams play for a number of years. We saw him enough to know he didn't have much more to offer than that. When his contract was up, we let Detroit sign him to a $3M/year contract and let him go and drafted Josh Metellus to be the new Jayron Kearse for next to nothing. That's what you should do. That's what we should have done with Shamar Stephen. But we didn't. And that was stupid.

Exactly correct. Especially when developing DL we are at least competent, so if a guy aint getting there, replace him with another and likely you can match the production cheaply.

Kearse aint the best example only in that it turns out we should have dumped Harris and kept Kearse. Not sure would have been much difference, except about 10M.

[Beef Supreme]

If you want to be alarmed go look at the salary the fucker has bled. Not sure how I missed it earlier but when started messing around on spotrac for 2021, I about shit seeing his number. What a joke.

Stephen should have been treated just like Jayron Kearse. Late round pick that can provide good depth for a very small price. If he looks to be more than that, great! But neither did. Once their contract is up, YOU LET THEM GO AND REPLACE THEM WITH ANOTHER LATE-ROUND GUY!!! We did exactly that with Jayron. He gave us capable depth at S along with good special teams play for a number of years. We saw him enough to know he didn't have much more to offer than that. When his contract was up, we let Detroit sign him to a $3M/year contract and let him go and drafted Josh Metellus to be the new Jayron Kearse for next to nothing. That's what you should do. That's what we should have done with Shamar Stephen. But we didn't. And that was stupid.

Exactly correct. Especially when developing DL we are at least competent, so if a guy aint getting there, replace him with another and likely you can match the production cheaply.

Kearse aint the best example only in that it turns out we should have dumped Harris and kept Kearse. Not sure would have been much difference, except about 10M.

Kearse is a perfect example of what I am talking about Harris is irrelevant to the point. Practically, it could factor in (I doubt it, but it could), but the fact that we did not make the right call with Harris does not mean we made the wrong call with Kearse. We made the right call. Detroit released him after a year (and almost $3M and a 5-11 record), so I don't think that was a great investment for them. Nor would it have been for us.

[mlhouse]

Haha, it's alarming how many seasons Stephen has been on the roster for the amount of output he gives. He's a late round draft pick so good for him for sticking around but I think that's more on the Vikings organization. The only time he wasn't here is when Richardson was signed.

If you want to be alarmed go look at the salary the fucker has bled. Not sure how I missed it earlier but when started messing around on spotrac for 2021, I about shit seeing his number. What a joke.

Stephen should have been treated just like Jayron Kearse. Late round pick that can provide good depth for a very small price. If he looks to be more than that, great! But neither did. Once their contract is up, YOU LET THEM GO AND REPLACE THEM WITH ANOTHER LATE-ROUND GUY!!! We did exactly that with Jayron. He gave us capable depth at S along with good special teams play for a number of years. We saw him enough to know he didn't have much more to offer than that. When his contract was up, we let Detroit sign him to a $3M/year contract and let him go and drafted Josh Metellus to be the new Jayron Kearse for next to nothing. That's what you should do. That's what we should have done with Shamar Stephen. But we didn't. And that was stupid.

We actually did that with Shamar Stephen too. When his rookie contract expired he became a free agent and signed with the Seahawks. The Vikings got a 7th round comp pick for that. Then after his one year deal was completed in Seattle, we signed him back. While I do not think signing was terrible, the contract was higher than I thought it should have been.

[Beef Supreme]

If you want to be alarmed go look at the salary the fucker has bled. Not sure how I missed it earlier but when started messing around on spotrac for 2021, I about shit seeing his number. What a joke.

Stephen should have been treated just like Jayron Kearse. Late round pick that can provide good depth for a very small price. If he looks to be more than that, great! But neither did. Once their contract is up, YOU LET THEM GO AND REPLACE THEM WITH ANOTHER LATE-ROUND GUY!!! We did exactly that with Jayron. He gave us capable depth at S along with good special teams play for a number of years. We saw him enough to know he didn't have much more to offer than that. When his contract was up, we let Detroit sign him to a $3M/year contract and let him go and drafted Josh Metellus to be the new Jayron Kearse for next to nothing. That's what you should do. That's what we should have done with Shamar Stephen. But we didn't. And that was stupid.

We actually did that with Shamar Stephen too. When his rookie contract expired he became a free agent and signed with the Seahawks. The Vikings got a 7th round comp pick for that. Then after his one year deal was completed in Seattle, we signed him back. While I do not think signing was terrible, the contract was higher than I thought it should have been.

Right. I did know that, but I forgot about it!


But what we didn’t do that we should have done, was draft another Shamar Stephen-level player in the late rounds to replace the exiting Shamar Stephen so we wouldn’t have to re-sign the previous Shamar Stephen.

[mlhouse]

Stephen should have been treated just like Jayron Kearse. Late round pick that can provide good depth for a very small price. If he looks to be more than that, great! But neither did. Once their contract is up, YOU LET THEM GO AND REPLACE THEM WITH ANOTHER LATE-ROUND GUY!!! We did exactly that with Jayron. He gave us capable depth at S along with good special teams play for a number of years. We saw him enough to know he didn't have much more to offer than that. When his contract was up, we let Detroit sign him to a $3M/year contract and let him go and drafted Josh Metellus to be the new Jayron Kearse for next to nothing. That's what you should do. That's what we should have done with Shamar Stephen. But we didn't. And that was stupid.

We actually did that with Shamar Stephen too. When his rookie contract expired he became a free agent and signed with the Seahawks. The Vikings got a 7th round comp pick for that. Then after his one year deal was completed in Seattle, we signed him back. While I do not think signing was terrible, the contract was higher than I thought it should have been.

Right. I did know that, but I forgot about it!


But what we didn’t do that we should have done, was draft another Shamar Stephen-level player in the late rounds to replace the exiting Shamar Stephen so we wouldn’t have to re-sign the previous Shamar Stephen.

Armon Watts?

[Beef Supreme]

We actually did that with Shamar Stephen too. When his rookie contract expired he became a free agent and signed with the Seahawks. The Vikings got a 7th round comp pick for that. Then after his one year deal was completed in Seattle, we signed him back. While I do not think signing was terrible, the contract was higher than I thought it should have been.

Right. I did know that, but I forgot about it!


But what we didn’t do that we should have done, was draft another Shamar Stephen-level player in the late rounds to replace the exiting Shamar Stephen so we wouldn’t have to re-sign the previous Shamar Stephen.

Armon Watts?

Then why bring back Shamar Stephen?

[mlhouse]

Then why bring back Shamar Stephen?

The coaching staff seemed to want him back. I believe they projected him as the 2 down starter next to Joseph and paid him low end starter money.

I actually liked Stephen as a backup DT and would have brought him back on backup money, not the $12 million they paid him.

[Beef Supreme]

Then why bring back Shamar Stephen?

The coaching staff seemed to want him back. I believe they projected him as the 2 down starter next to Joseph and paid him low end starter money.

I actually liked Stephen as a backup DT and would have brought him back on backup money, not the $12 million they paid him.

Right. So he took a little vacation to Seattle, but the overall point stands. Stephen, like Kearse, is a quality backup level player who is an asset to a team on a minimum contract and a detriment to a team on a multi-year, multi-million$ contract.

[mlhouse]

Then why bring back Shamar Stephen?

The coaching staff seemed to want him back. I believe they projected him as the 2 down starter next to Joseph and paid him low end starter money.

I actually liked Stephen as a backup DT and would have brought him back on backup money, not the $12 million they paid him.

Right. So he took a little vacation to Seattle, but the overall point stands. Stephen, like Kearse, is a quality backup level player who is an asset to a team on a minimum contract and a detriment to a team on a multi-year, multi-million$ contract.

I agree with your assessment of Stephens, but the MN coaching staff did not. And, the Vikings did not resign Stephens directly after his rookie contract.

[Oriole81]

I think you guys are overrating how easy it is to find and develop these late round guys.

For every Shemar Stephen or Stephen Weatherley that you find, you go through plenty of Jaleel Johnsons, Jalyn Holmes', Hercules Mata'afas, Armon Watts', Tashawn Bowers, Ade Arunas, Curtis Cothrans, Justin Trattous, BJ Dubois', Corey Woottons, Everett Watkins', D'Aundre Reeds, etc.

And considering it takes a few years for these guys to develop anyway, you're lucky if you get 1.5 years of actual production before these guys actually hit open free agency.

Sometimes you have to sign back these guys.

[Phrooster]

No Cap$to sign anyone of quality and lets face it who wants to play for zim?

[mlhouse]

I think you guys are overrating how easy it is to find and develop these late round guys.

For every Shemar Stephen or Stephen Weatherley that you find, you go through plenty of Jaleel Johnsons, Jalyn Holmes', Hercules Mata'afas, Armon Watts', Tashawn Bowers, Ade Arunas, Curtis Cothrans, Justin Trattous, BJ Dubois', Corey Woottons, Everett Watkins', D'Aundre Reeds, etc.

And considering it takes a few years for these guys to develop anyway, you're lucky if you get 1.5 years of actual production before these guys actually hit open free agency.

Sometimes you have to sign back these guys.

And that is why getting several late round picks creates advantage.