Done Deal: Just Now” Minnesota Vikings Star WR Just Done A Long Term Deal With Houston Texans To….

MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Vikings traded for an extra first-round pick last week, but CBS Sports’ mock draft experts predict that was just a prelude to an even bigger move.

The Vikings own picks 11 and 23, the latter thanks to a trade with the Houston Texans. While they could certainly stand pat and take two first-rounders, the consensus thinking is they’ll package those picks — and probably more — to move up higher and take a quarterback. Kirk Cousins left for the Atlanta Falcons in free agency, and though the team signed Sam Darnold as a short-term replacement, he’s not the future for the franchise.

Four of CBS Sports’ experts have released updated mock drafts since the trade. All of them have the Vikings moving up into the top five to take a QB. The one expert who hasn’t updated his mock already had the Vikings making a similar move.

Ryan Wilson, Josh Edwards and Tom Fornelli predict the Vikings will trade to the No. 5 pick, currently held by the Los Angeles Chargers, to take Michigan QB J.J McCarthy.

McCarthy is coming off a National Championship win, but his stats lag behind the other top QBs and he wasn’t asked to carry the offense. He’s widely seen as part of the second tier of draftable QBs. In each of the McCarthy scenarios, the top three QBs — Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye — are off the board before the fifth pick.

CBS Sports’ other two experts have the Vikings trading all the way up to pick three, where the New England Patriots are currently slotted. The Patriots are also rumored to be in the QB market, so it may take a haul to get them to move. In both scenarios, the Vikings move up to grab Maye, who was long seen as the No. 2 QB in this class before Daniels made a late rise due to his Heisman-winning play and athletic ability.

These latest mock drafts indicate two things: It’s an open secret that the Vikings aren’t done trading, and if they want one of the top three passers, they’ll likely need to get to pick No. 3. It remains to be seen whether general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah is willing to pay the price to get there.

About a month out from the start of free agency, seemingly as a way to extend talks about re-signing him, the Minnesota Vikings pushed back the void date on Marcus Davenport’s contract to March 13.

Of course Davenport hit the open market, signing a one-year deal with the Detroit Lions. After he played just four games for the Vikings last season, after signing a one-year, $13 million deal, SB Nation’s Vikings’ site, Daily Norseman, immediately asserted “Marcus Davenport to steal money from Detroit Lions in 2024”, with the subheading “Better them than us.”

Vikings’ fans certainly have reason(s) to be bitter right now. Davenport landing with the Lions have barely playing for them last season is probably low on that totem pole.

The assertion that Davenport will steal money from the Lions this year, at least compared to the Vikings, is also fundamentally wrong.

As part of his one-year deal last offseason, the Vikings tacked on four void years to spread out his $8.5 million signing bonus. That proration accelerates onto this year and leaves them a $6.8 million dead money hit.

Marcus Davenport will cost the Vikings more money than he’ll cost the Lions this year

Davenport signed a one-year, $6.5 million deal with the Lions, reportedly worth “up to” $10.5 million. He’s getting just $3 million guaranteed, and his cap hit is just $3.42 million this year. Under a rule simply named the “50 percent rule”, the Lions can (and did) treat half of his $2.5 million base salary and other bonuses as prorated signing bonus for cap purposes. The Lions did it with Halapoulivaati Vaitai last offseason.

$1.125 million base salary counting against the cap, plus $2,297,500 in total prorated bonuses, equals a $3,422,500 cap hit for Davenport this year. The other half of the prorated bonus money hits the Lions’ cap as dead money in 2025. The two years of cap hits total less ($5.72 million) than the reported $6.5 million base value of the deal.

The Lions took a flier on Davenport, and they structured the deal in a way that looks even better than the surface details that were first reported. He’s also costing the Lions half what he’ll cost the Vikings (to not play for them) this year.