Concerns down the road

Here's a list of the Vikings free agents.

Here's a list of the Vikings with one year left on their contracts heading into the 2009 season.

Now take a look at the second list again. Notice anything interesting about it?

If you answered “there’s four Vikings 2006 draft picks on it”, you win the prize.

(There is no prize, by the way, I just liked writing that line.)

I find this interesting because I’ve often read how good the Vikings 2006 draft was. After all, they did get five starters out of it.

But here's the problem with those five starters, who happen to be Chad Greenway, Cedric Griffin, Ryan Cook, Tarvaris Jackson and Ray Edwards. Four of them – Griffin, Cook, Jackson and Edwards – were not signed to contract extensions during the 2008 season.

And that should raise lots of alarm bells for Vikings fans about this draft and the future prospects of this team.

That's because the Vikes have been very proactive in recent seasons in signing players they thought might be either franchise cornerstones or above average starters to extensions.

Remember 2006? The team signed Kevin Williams, E.J. Henderson and Bryant McKinnie to extensions in-season, well before they were due to hit free agency. In 2007, the Vikings did the same thing, locking up Pat Williams, Anthony Herrera and even Chris Kluwe.

But in 2008 – nothing.

Could it be that the future of most of the Fantastic Five from the 2006 draft might not be so bright in Minnesota? Greenway is certainly a keeper. But as a first-round pick, his contract doesn’t run out in ’09, which is probably why it wasn’t extended this season. But expect it to be extended sometime in mid-season 2009, if not sooner.

What plans the Vikings have for the others isn’t as clear.

Edwards has been a solid but frequently unspectacular starter the past two seasons. Yet if the Vikings management was really sold on him, I suspect he would have been approached about an extension before he entered a contract year. It didn’t happen and the Vikings don’t seem too worried about it, either.

Griffin played much better from the Arizona game onward but also went two full years without an interception. He’s still a question mark.

Speaking of question marks, how about Cook, who lost his job to Artis Hicks, then got it back only when Hicks was too hurt to play. He was last seen committing two false starts on the Vikings bumbling, hopeless final drive in the playoff loss to Philly.

As for Jackson, well you saw the Eagles game, didn’t you?

So three seasons in, the great draft of 2006 is turning out to be not so great. And couple that with a 2007 draft that outside of Adrian Peterson isn’t looking as promising as it did 12 months ago (Sidney Rice, Marcus McCauley and Aundrae Allison all regressed in 2008, while Brian Robison treaded water), there are depth concerns for the Vikings as they head into 2009 and beyond.

Now the Vikes do have a lot of talent and much of that talent is still young and in its prime. Peterson is 23. Greenway is about to turn 26. Kevin Williams, Henderson and Bernard Berrian are all 28.

But you need more than superstars to be a successful team in the NFL. You need the foot soldiers, too. You need guys who aren’t stars but are above average starters or emerging players biding their time as reserves. This is where you get the depth to survive those injuries that inevitably sideline a star or two each season. This is also how you replace stars in-house when they pass their best before date. Unfortunately, these are the kind of players the Vikings haven’t been able to draft or develop over the years. They often hit home runs and triples with their first round picks (except, sadly, in 2005) but pop up to the catcher on their choices in the second round and beyond.

For a while, it looked like the drafts of 2006 and 2007 were going to reverse that trend and provide the Vikings roster with some solid depth. Now that promise is fading.

So expect owner Zygi Wilf to continue to have to write big checks to other team’s free agents if he wants to keep the Vikings in the NFC's upper echelon. He won't be able to keep the Vikings there by signing his own young players.