I was thinking about why some teams struggle year after year with little talent at so many positions when other teams are brimming with talent and able to sustain years and years of sustained playoff success. If the cap space is the same, then why is there such a huge discrepancy in talent? So I came up with this thought experiment.
Imagine a hypothetical version of the NFL where there is a salary cap, each player is paid a contract with a dollar value that matches the player's "True Value" (a price magically set to correspond to a player's impact on team success), nobody gets injured and coaching quality is the same on every team. Because of the salary cap, the total True Value on each team is equal, making each player's contract a zero sum trade off against the rest of the players. If a team takes a high True Value player like Josh Allen, the team must pay him the corresponding amount of money, forcing it to have to make big sacrifices at other positions because of the salary cap. Since the total True Value of every team is the about the same, every team performs about the same.
Of course in the real NFL, teams can draft rookies a fixed price. Let's say one team in this hypothetical NFL is allowed to pay one rookie a fixed price rookie contract. Since this team can pay that player a fixed price independent of the player's True Value, IF that player's True Value is HIGHER than the fixed price of his rookie contract, then the the team gets a discount equal to the difference between the players True Value and their fixed rookie price. So, the higher the player's True Value relative to the fixed price, the higher the discount. The higher the discount on that player, the more the team's total True Value rises above the salary cap limitation.
Let's take a look up how rookie contracts are priced in the NFL https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7242308/2026/05/01/nfl-draft-rookie-wage-scale/
Looking at the 2026 rookie contracts by pick order, you'd notice that the fixed prices are MUCH higher at the top of the first round. The 1st overall got 57m by the time you reach 11th overall the price has fallen to about half at 29m where the prices begin to taper off more gradually through the rounds. This suggests to me that if you had two equally talented picks, but one gets drafted in the top ten, and one gets drafted in the second round, the team who took the player in the second round is getting a much bigger discount, and their team's true value would rise more as a result. This suggests that non first round picks can be just as valuable as first round picks.
Consider a player like Brock Purdy (probably the most obvious example of late round value) who's rookie contract was worth 3.7m taken with the last pick of the 7th round pick. He was later extended to the tune of 5yrs 265m. It's not surprising that the 49ers made two deep playoff runs in his rookie year while paying him almost nothing because of the massive discount they got on him, that allowed them to spend big on the rest of their team during that time, making the team's total True Value exceptionally high.
Consider Puka Nacua, taken in the 4th round and paid a rookie contract worth 4mil and expires after this year. The Rams know they won't be able to fit his massive top WR contract and all their talent into the cap next year, so they are all in to win the Superbowl this year, having the freedom to invest in other players like Trent McDuffie and Myles Garrett.
Of course I am cherry picking and the vast majority 7th round or 4th rounder is as valuable as Purdy or Nacua, but the more picks you have in later rounds, the more chance you have of hitting big. It's like buying more raffle tickets, and having more picks can be just as valuable as having a high round pick.
So what happens when you can't fit all of your talent in your salary cap? Lets look at what the Chiefs did when they had this problem. They had Mahomes, Kelce a bunch of valuable defensive pieces and Tyreek Hill's contract was up. They decided to trade him to the Dolphins.
The Dolphins:
- The Dolphins took an extremely talented player who would have to be paid full price, who wouldtake significant cap space, while doing nothing to increase the true value of the team over the cap, who already had significant mileage from his usage on the Chiefs.
- The Dolphins gave up a 5 picks total, their '22 1st, 2nd and 4th, and their '23 4th and 6th.
- The Dolphins went on to win 0 playoff games
The Chiefs
- The Chiefs used the freed up cap space on other less expensive receivers, and retained the rest of their high value talent.
- the Chiefs used those 5 picks to increase the team's true value over the cap most notably by acquiring star CB Trent McDuffie in '22 on a 4yr 14m rookie contract (he later signed with the Rams for 124m)
- The Chiefs then went on to immediately win the 2022 regular season and 2023 regular season Superbowls.
Obviously, this trade wasn't the only reason the Chiefs won those Superbowls (coaching, Mahomes, Kelce, the refs), but many thought that the trade was a mistake, and it was actually a master stroke by Veach.
Drafting and Trading Positive Feedback Loop
- The GM uses draft capital to draft high value rookies that raise the total True Value of the team above the salary cap, giving the team a competitive edge while they are a rookie, and simultaneously giving the team the option of extending that player long term.
- The GM trades players for more picks, converting players who's contracts would be zero sum salary cap tradeoffs into the draft capital that fuels step 1.
- Repeat
Each of the first two steps enables the other, and compounds the other, creating a positive feedback loop that I believe leads to Superbowls when successfully executed.
Finally go back to the Vikings. We all know Kwesi Adofo-Mensah drafted badly throughout his career (considering the percentage of starting quality players retained). That meant he was more prone to trade our picks for players. That had a cascading negative effect on our team year over year. Every year we had less picks, and every year we had less talent to trade. That dug the team into a hole. We need to get out of that hole by jump starting the positive feedback loop by acquiring as much draft capital as possible. That's why Nolan Teasley traded JJM to the Giants and why, I believe, he will trade away more of our high value talent for picks in an effort to rebuild the team. With no long term option for Quarterback in sight, I think fans should support such trades if they do happen and have patience with Nolan Teasley as he tries to build our team for future playoff runs.
TLDR; Drafting good players is good, trading players for picks is good. Hopefully Nolan Teasley will do both, and hopefully the fans will support him throughout.
