13 hours ago, austinfan said:

He's also had problems with injuries in 2023 and 2025, PFF had them 7th in 2024 when they were relatively healthy.

The key is he was OL coach when they were running a system Mannion is familiar with, so he can coach blocking schemes that fit with the new system.

I get the feeling that Kuper is the scapegoat for letting Darnold walk and betting on McCarthy:

The Vikings offensive line, into which significant money was invested during 2025 free agency, played with more than 20 combinations as it was racked by injury this season, often leaving first-time starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy playing behind a hodge-podge grouping. Only right guard Will Fries appeared in all 17 games, and the fifth-year player’s performance indicated he still has room to grow. Fries was one of last offseason’s additions, signing a five-year deal worth up to $88 million after leaving the Colts.

Center Ryan Kelly, the Vikings’ other big free-agent addition among the group last year, ended the season on injured reserve. Another player signed from Indianapolis, Kelly suffered two concussions and spent five weeks on IR midseason only to return and be evaluated for a third in the game against the Giants. Left tackle Christian Darrisaw faced ups and downs in his return from multiple ligament tears in his knee in October 2024. Rookie left guard Donovan Jackson and veteran right tackle Brian O’Neill also dealt with smaller injuries throughout the season that caused them to miss time.

Collectively, Vikings quarterbacks were sacked 60 times this season, tied for second-most in the league. The O-line had an 11% sack rate, also second-worst in the league, per Next Gen Stats.

Interesting comparison, Darnold was sacked 48 times in 2024, 27 times in 2025 with Seahawks, but overall put up similar numbers

Kuper did play in the League under Mike Shanahan in Denver. He was in the League for 8 seasons. I don't think that's insignificant.

12 hours ago, pgcd3 said:

I have faith in Howie to do something substantial this offseason

Like get an entirely new offensive coaching staff?

37 minutes ago, RLC said:

He had 4 years in Minnesota and never developed a non 1st rounder. So we know if you give him talent, he can get them to play at a good level. We don't know if he can turn day 3 picks into starters. That's the real value of a good OL coach.

Could he improve? Sure. We shouldn't expect that.

Stoutland is obviously incredible, but let's not forget that Dillard is a talented first round pick that flopped on his watch.

Mailata, the jewel in Stoutland's development crown, isn't just anyone. He is a unique physical talent. Could just any OL coach develop him into what he became? Of course not. But we also can't fault Kuper for not doing something similar to a random 6th round SEC OT who has been vetted, coached up his entire life, and everyone knew never had that kind of upside.

Stoutland did an incredible job of getting more out of OL than other teams did...but he also was handed an IMMENSE amount of raw talent. Stoutland didn't exactly develop guys like Jason Peters, Evan Mathis, Brandon Brooks, Lane Johnson, or Jason Kelce. I may be stretching it with Kelce, who went to his first pro-bowl post-Stoutland, but all of these guys were pretty damn good before he came on the scene.

I'm not trying to take anything away from him...just saying that he's been given some fantastic raw material to work with.

FWIW, I think one of his best projects was plugging Vaitai in at LT and helping the offense to not miss a beat.

16 hours ago, Iggles25 said:

If Landon retires, are they off the hook on his cap hit?

I think they have to potentially reclaim his bonus.

13 hours ago, austinfan said:

He's also had problems with injuries in 2023 and 2025, PFF had them 7th in 2024 when they were relatively healthy.

The key is he was OL coach when they were running a system Mannion is familiar with, so he can coach blocking schemes that fit with the new system.

I get the feeling that Kuper is the scapegoat for letting Darnold walk and betting on McCarthy:

The Vikings offensive line, into which significant money was invested during 2025 free agency, played with more than 20 combinations as it was racked by injury this season, often leaving first-time starting quarterback J.J. McCarthy playing behind a hodge-podge grouping. Only right guard Will Fries appeared in all 17 games, and the fifth-year player’s performance indicated he still has room to grow. Fries was one of last offseason’s additions, signing a five-year deal worth up to $88 million after leaving the Colts.

Center Ryan Kelly, the Vikings’ other big free-agent addition among the group last year, ended the season on injured reserve. Another player signed from Indianapolis, Kelly suffered two concussions and spent five weeks on IR midseason only to return and be evaluated for a third in the game against the Giants. Left tackle Christian Darrisaw faced ups and downs in his return from multiple ligament tears in his knee in October 2024. Rookie left guard Donovan Jackson and veteran right tackle Brian O’Neill also dealt with smaller injuries throughout the season that caused them to miss time.

Collectively, Vikings quarterbacks were sacked 60 times this season, tied for second-most in the league. The O-line had an 11% sack rate, also second-worst in the league, per Next Gen Stats.

Interesting comparison, Darnold was sacked 48 times in 2024, 27 times in 2025 with Seahawks, but overall put up similar numbers

When injuries force an OL to play with 20 combinations in 1 season, I think their net performance can be almost completely disregarded when evaluating the OL coach. I'd sooner just evaluate individuals based on how they were or were not developed.

From what I hear from Viking fans, the only issue with Darrisaw is injuries. They seem to have no complaints about his actual performance or development.

Donovan Jackson was just OK as a rookie and I'd argue that's not great return for a 1st round pick at OG...I think it's fair to be disappointed he wasn't better.

3 hours ago, greend said:

Thanks, in that case I didn't watch it. But had i watched the superbowl i definitely would have switched channels at the half.

I call BS, old man. You would have been just like the rest of us Old Men, joining millions of others for the half time flush and then hitting the food. (And for me coming out of damp January replenishing my drink). That’s what half time is for.

3 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

Stoutland is obviously incredible, but let's not forget that Dillard is a talented first round pick that flopped on his watch.

Mailata, the jewel in Stoutland's development crown, isn't just anyone. He is a unique physical talent. Could just any OL coach develop him into what he became? Of course not. But we also can't fault Kuper for not doing something similar to a random 6th round SEC OT who has been vetted, coached up his entire life, and everyone knew never had that kind of upside.

Stoutland did an incredible job of getting more out of OL than other teams did...but he also was handed an IMMENSE amount of raw talent. Stoutland didn't exactly develop guys like Jason Peters, Evan Mathis, Brandon Brooks, Lane Johnson, or Jason Kelce. I may be stretching it with Kelce, who went to his first pro-bowl post-Stoutland, but all of these guys were pretty damn good before he came on the scene.

I'm not trying to take anything away from him...just saying that he's been given some fantastic raw material to work with.

FWIW, I think one of his best projects was plugging Vaitai in at LT and helping the offense to not miss a beat.

With all things, it is a combination of talent, coaching, and circumstance. Kelce was decent before Stoutland but he struggled bigger NTs and holding. Stoutland helped him solve those problems in his game. Stoutland's 2017 season was probably his best. The team had a dominant run game with pretty average RBs. Not only did he have to replace Peters with Vaitai , he also got a pretty average RG, in Wisnewski, to play at an above average level. I agree the team has helped by investing heavily in the position.

Kuper doesn't have to be a savant to be successful. He will have talented players. I just hope he's understands what they need to do to be successful.

57 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

I think they have to potentially reclaim his bonus.

I feel like the eagles don't generally come after bonuses in these situations, but in this case they would have to.

22 minutes ago, devpool said:

I feel like the eagles don't generally come after bonuses in these situations, but in this case they would have to.

I don't even remember the last player to retire who wasn't at the end of his contract or who wasn't on just a one year deal.

28 minutes ago, devpool said:

I feel like the eagles don't generally come after bonuses in these situations, but in this case they would have to.

You generally can't if it's a couple of years in.

On 2/8/2026 at 10:35 PM, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

Dude you have this weird obsessions to hate the rams. meanwhile Stafford won the mvp. Won 2 road playoff games and went into Seattle nearly beat the champions; when patriots lost by 16 and niners by 35.

Also patriots had the easiest schedule over the last 25 years. Might be why th patriots won more game. Meanwhile rams had one of the toughest strength of schedule and highest strength of victory.

You have some good takes but you weird rams hate is off the charts. Stafford sucks according to you, yet wins an mvp with a career year. Rams suck cause they won close road playoff games and nearly won a 3rd that came down to the wire.

Only thing sniffing here with propaganda is you cause you never stfu about your ram hate. I don’t think the rams were some juggernaut. However I’m also not blind with hate like yourself. Amazing you disappeared after Stafford won mvp and nothing to Fing say.

So, we're giving out trophies for almost achieving something? LOL.

Maybe Skippy has some hate for the Rams due to the unending glaze they and Stafford have been getting all season long.

Anyway, I don't think Stafford sucks, but he did fail to get it done in the NFCCG, and it wasn't like he didn't have an opportunity to win that game. He was also pretty bad vs Chicago and should've lost that game, but Caleb had like 3-4 turnovers. Again, I don't think he sucks, but he's definitely a little overrated.

I want Howie to retain as many of our good defensive players as possible.

I want fresh blood at TE, and expect that Goedert will be gone, he'll want too much money.

I want attention on the O line like everyone else.

Other than that, there are things to address like depth and corner situation in the draft as well.

The new coaches have a LOT of work to do this offseason installing a new offense.

10 minutes ago, devpool said:

I feel like the eagles don't generally come after bonuses in these situations, but in this case they would have to.

They should try and recoup some of that money. He got a 20m signing bonus and PHI ammortized it over 5 years. 5m/yr bonus avg on a 4yr contract is nothing to sneeze at when cap space is tight and not many restructure options are available for PHI. PHI could potentially get back ~10m if he decides not to play in '26. They could also work out a medical/injury settlement to help recoup some of the money.

Looking at the league and how they can create cap room this is a pretty good chart:

If you aren't a chart person here is a table view:

These are available here:

https://overthecap.com/restructure

Not sure if this had already been posted.

Vegas doesn't read the Blog.

2 hours ago, eagle45 said:

Stoutland is obviously incredible, but let's not forget that Dillard is a talented first round pick that flopped on his watch.

Mailata, the jewel in Stoutland's development crown, isn't just anyone. He is a unique physical talent. Could just any OL coach develop him into what he became? Of course not. But we also can't fault Kuper for not doing something similar to a random 6th round SEC OT who has been vetted, coached up his entire life, and everyone knew never had that kind of upside.

Stoutland did an incredible job of getting more out of OL than other teams did...but he also was handed an IMMENSE amount of raw talent. Stoutland didn't exactly develop guys like Jason Peters, Evan Mathis, Brandon Brooks, Lane Johnson, or Jason Kelce. I may be stretching it with Kelce, who went to his first pro-bowl post-Stoutland, but all of these guys were pretty damn good before he came on the scene.

I'm not trying to take anything away from him...just saying that he's been given some fantastic raw material to work with.

FWIW, I think one of his best projects was plugging Vaitai in at LT and helping the offense to not miss a beat.

2 hours ago, eagle45 said:

Stoutland is obviously incredible, but let's not forget that Dillard is a talented first round pick that flopped on his watch.

Mailata, the jewel in Stoutland's development crown, isn't just anyone. He is a unique physical talent. Could just any OL coach develop him into what he became? Of course not. But we also can't fault Kuper for not doing something similar to a random 6th round SEC OT who has been vetted, coached up his entire life, and everyone knew never had that kind of upside.

Stoutland did an incredible job of getting more out of OL than other teams did...but he also was handed an IMMENSE amount of raw talent. Stoutland didn't exactly develop guys like Jason Peters, Evan Mathis, Brandon Brooks, Lane Johnson, or Jason Kelce. I may be stretching it with Kelce, who went to his first pro-bowl post-Stoutland, but all of these guys were pretty damn good before he came on the scene.

I'm not trying to take anything away from him...just saying that he's been given some fantastic raw material to work with.

FWIW, I think one of his best projects was plugging Vaitai in at LT and helping the offense to not miss a beat.

Concur to your points. For all the successes Stoutland has had with the team, why the team did not make an all-out effort to retain his service? Retirement is just a face-saving excuse for a failed effort.

32 minutes ago, MF POON said:

So, we're giving out trophies for almost achieving something? LOL.

Maybe Skippy has some hate for the Rams due to the unending glaze they and Stafford have been getting all season long.

Anyway, I don't think Stafford sucks, but he did fail to get it done in the NFCCG, and it wasn't like he didn't have an opportunity to win that game. He was also pretty bad vs Chicago and should've lost that game, but Caleb had like 3-4 turnovers. Again, I don't think he sucks, but he's definitely a little overrated.

No one‘s giving them a trophy. We also never said they were a juggernaut or some great team. All people said was the Super Bowl was determined by the Rams and the Seahawks playing in the NFC championship game because people thought they were the two best teams. Which kind of played itself out as all their games against each other were close and came down to the wire. Literally the point differential in those games that they played were three points in three games. Which means the grand total of margin of victory for the Seahawks in the three games they played against Rams was one point per game.

Furthermore, it wasn’t the patriots as the second best team. The Patriots had one of the easiest schedules in the last 30 years. It’s why Maye and their offense never looked good all playoffs and probably fortunate Bo nix broke his ankle cause scoring 1 TD because of stidham doesn’t make them look much better than the rams in Chicago. Furthermore they had more turnovers than tds on offense in their run. They had 8 turnovers and 7 total offensive tds in 4 games.

Or maybe even when the Rams were playing well against Seattle in Seattle, he still was finding ways to crap on Matt Stafford. Literally Seahawks defense from mid October (jags game Oct 13th) onward gave up 25 or more points just twice. Both times to rams and stafford. Furthermore Stafford threw for 457 yards and 3 tds in a loss scoring 37 and 374 yards and 3 tds scoring 27. No INTs. Qb ratings of 110.7 and 127.5. So he wasn’t great against the Bears. Although 4th quarter he left the field giving them a touchdown lead when they had to have it. Ditto twice in Carolina. Meanwhile hurts wasn’t great against the niners who were far more banged up on defense then any team in the field and was at home. Meanwhile go constant Stafford bashing as he’s playing better than any other Qb vs. Seattle over the last 3 months.

I don’t know maybe the glazing of Matt Stafford was warranted as he threw for 4700 yards, 46 touchdown passes which led the league and had a quarterback rating of 109.5 which was second in the league. He went against 6 defenses who were top 10 in points allowed, he averaged 26.7 ppg in those 6 contests. I don’t know might be warranted. Instead of every time we come on here it’s Matt Stafford nitpicking and Stafford constant obsession to bash him even when he plays well. Meanwhile if that were hurts he gets very quiet or goes off on tangents not associated with his bad performance. and I’m not somebody who hates hurts. But if we’re gonna be Matt Stafford nitpick all the time and hurts tangents not associated with his poor performance in a game we are discussing then you better expect people to do the same nitpicking skippy does with Stafford to Jalen hurts.

Furthermore, biggest issue is this nobody on here said the Rams were some juggernaut or great team. Like he seems to imagine everyone saying. He puts words in people’s mouth and went off on a tangent about it. All people said was the Super Bowl was determined in the NFC title game because people thought those were the two best team teams. Which this year isn’t some grand accomplishment. Really hard to not say that when the Broncos lost the starting quarterback. He told us all year that the bills weren’t any good so they nearly lost to that bills team at home (which he told me repeatedly told me bills have no chance to win it all and were not good). And the Patriots just got their ass kicked by Seattle. Meanwhile, the Rams every time they played Seattle, it was down to the wire. Furthermore every loss ths rams had was by 1 score. Only seattle and the rams managed to do that all year including the playoffs. Seattle being the best team and arguably their biggest challenge was rams. Heck some of their own players said it. If you wanna say the Rams aren’t second best team is fine but acting like the rams getting to nfc title game and weren’t one of 4 best teams in the NFL is just naive or foolishness.

However, if skippy is gonna make the argument, there’s no way the Rams were while having top 3 strength of schedule and the top strength of victory all while scoring the most points in the league, but then tell me all season that the Eagles were one of if not still the best team. That’s a problem especially while losing to a banged up niners team that got smoked a week later by 35 against the team who were in dogfight against the rams.

15 minutes ago, devpool said:

I feel like the eagles don't generally come after bonuses in these situations, but in this case they would have to.

It looks like he has about $12 million in the signing bonus left. It looks like the remaining bonuses are roster bonuses. Maybe if he retired before they were due they would get cap relief. I would guess if he's seriously considering retirement they will try to push back the due date for the bonus rather than recoup if he retires.

Anyone know if Howies insutlrance policies would cover retirement for medical reasons? Maybe we get cap relief that way rather than going after Dickersons bonuses.

Random question. Say a team in the NFL has 30m in cap space.

If that team trades a player who has a 10m cap hit for a player who has a 15m cap number, does that mean you now have 5m in cap space?

1 minute ago, Sack that QB said:

Random question. Say a team in the NFL has 30m in cap space.

If that team trades a player who has a 10m cap hit for a player who has a 15m cap number, does that mean you now have 5m in cap space?

It depends. Any money that you already paid out as a signing or roster bonus automatically accelerates as soon as player is not on team. But if the cap hit is from a guaranteed salary then the team getting the player is on the hook for it.

54 minutes ago, Joe Ball said:

They should try and recoup some of that money. He got a 20m signing bonus and PHI ammortized it over 5 years. 5m/yr bonus avg on a 4yr contract is nothing to sneeze at when cap space is tight and not many restructure options are available for PHI. PHI could potentially get back ~10m if he decides not to play in '26. They could also work out a medical/injury settlement to help recoup some of the money.

Looking at the league and how they can create cap room this is a pretty good chart:

If you aren't a chart person here is a table view:

These are available here:

https://overthecap.com/restructure

My understanding from a source who would know (Yes, I get the eye rolling) is that they redid Goedert's contract on paper so that they can designate him as a post June 1st cut rather than take the whole $20M against the cap this year. We'll know for sure around March 15.

As to the impact of a Dickerson retirement on the cap, there are a few things in play.
1. He's due a $17M Option Bonus at the start of the 2026 regular season, which prorates to $3.5M/year for 5 years. However, for cap purposes, the $3.5M is added to the cap on the first day of the league year, unless the team renounces it.
2. The team could seek a modification for the $3.5M proration. The prorations from his SB and his 2025 Option Bonus were fully guaranteed and earned, and locked in.
3. The next question is when he files retirement papers. He would almost certainly do it after June 1st (as Kelce, Fletch and BG did).
4. If he files his retirement papers after June, the cap hits are $8.9M this year and $12.1M in 2027. If they seek modification the 2026 number goes down by $3.5M and the 2027 cap number stays the same. If they don't seek the modification the 2026 cap number stays the same and the 2027 cap number is reduced by $3.5M.

5 hours ago, greend said:

Thanks, in that case I didn't watch it. But had i watched the superbowl i definitely would have switched channels at the half.

I just muted it and glanced up occasionally so I didn't miss the part I tuned in to watch.

3 hours ago, NCiggles said:

My guess is that Stoutland burned some bridges with Howie and Lurie. It's not impossible but maybe .1% is my guess.

Yea I don't see it happening either after they agreed to release statements at the same time and then he released his earlier as a sort of message he wasn't happy

1 hour ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

Not sure if this had already been posted.

It was posted before, but I didn't have time to watch, I just did so thanks.

O line & scheme experts: how difficult will it be for our O line to change approach like this? They've known Stout's way for so long.