Vikings could look to move on from RB Dalvin Cook

Running back Dalvin Cook played a full season for the first time in his six-year NFL career in 2022, and yet it’s possible the Minnesota Vikings may not bring back the 1,000-yard rusher.

It’s not that Cook had an unproductive year, in fact quite the opposite. But Cook’s $14.1M cap hit, according to Judd Zulgad of the USA Today, is merely too much money for a cash-strapped team like the Vikings, who are approximately $23M over the cap, to absorb.

“(GM) Adofo-Mensah is more of an analytics guy and that likely means his philosophy is that paying big bucks to backs is a bad idea,” Zulgad said. “… Cook will cost the Vikings $6.1M in dead cap money if he’s jettisoned, but he also will save them $7.9M to the cap and that’s valuable. Could the Vikings’ attempt to trade Cook? Absolutely, and they probably will. But it’s questionable what type of return they might get for an aging player who has had injury issues.”