Minnesota has a decision to make with Vikings running back Dalvin Cook.
There’s no question that Cook is a good player. He’s coming off a year where he rushed for 1,135 yards and 13 touchdowns, both of which were career highs.
Cook has a huge influence on the offense — when he’s healthy. However, the running back has already missed 19 games in what is just a three-year NFL career.
Cook’s contract will end after the 2020 NFL season. Plenty of NFL teams have been burned by giving running backs big contracts, but there’s also been cases like the Vikings giving a big deal to Adrian Peterson, who clearly thrived with the team when he was healthy.
Over The Cap founder Jason Fitzgerald thinks an extension would probably run the Vikings $13 million a year. However, Fitzgerald also thinks that if Minnesota lets Cook walk, then the running back wouldn’t hit $10 million in free agency.
If the Vikings wanted to give Cook $13 million this offseason, they would have to make a move to free up space. The Vikings do have enough money to make a deal of that caliber work for future seasons, based on salary cap space reported by Over The Cap.
