PHILADELPHIA -- Sunday night wasn't Case Keenum's night, to put it mildly, but 2017 was still resoundingly his season. The Minnesota Vikings quarterback parlayed a one-year, $2 million contract as a backup into a more lucrative future -- even if his performance in the NFC Championship Game loss knocked him down a notch or two.
With insights from agents, salary-cap managers and other insiders, we size up how much Keenum will command, what Minnesota might be thinking and where Keenum fits with his peers from a statistical standpoint.
"It will be interesting to see how it shakes out," a personnel director said. "I think the dominoes will start falling when you see where [Vikings offensive coordinator] Pat Shurmur will go, and does he take [Sam] Bradford or Keenum? Even if Shurmur goes to New York, I think one of those QBs goes somehow."
More than Glennon
Keenum has much more going for him than Mike Glennon did when Glennon signed a three-year, $45 million deal with the Chicago Bears last offseason.
That doesn't mean teams think Keenum, an undrafted 2012 free agent with a career 53.1 Total QBR, is suddenly a top-tier quarterback. Those guys can rally their teams from well behind on the scoreboard, the way Tom Brady, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger did in these playoffs. But teams do know they can win with Keenum, as the Vikings did in going 12-4 with him starting, including the postseason.
"The game Sunday night was costly for Keenum, but he has been much better than Glennon, and I think he gets more," an agent said.
Agents and salary-cap managers said on Sunday that they thought Keenum could command a three-year deal worth $48 million to $60 million, with perhaps the first year and change guaranteed. Three years and $54 million with $22 million guaranteed was one agent's estimate. Insiders weren't sure how much Keenum's performance in the NFC Championship Game would affect the outlook, but they suspected supply and demand would work in Keenum's favor.
Using the franchise or transition tag was another option for the Vikings, though one agent thought the former would be more likely. The transition tag would leave open the door for Shurmur to push for signing Keenum if, as expected, the offensive coordinator becomes the Giants' next head coach. Insiders cautioned that Giants general manager Dave Gettleman's recent comments suggesting the team wanted Eli Manning back were subject to change, with it being only January.
The Zimmer factor
Vikings coach Mike Zimmer refused to anoint Keenum as the full-time starter throughout the season. That came as little surprise after Zimmer said he repeatedly consulted retired Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells, his former boss, on how to proceed following Teddy Bridgewater's knee injury in 2016. If Zimmer consulted with Parcells then, surely he was doing the same once Minnesota lost Bradford in Week 1, and probably thereafter. Any coach would be fortunate to have such a resource on his side.
Zimmer's refusal to publicly declare Keenum the starter was straight out of the Parcells playbook. Why not keep the pressure on the quarterback? Why turn Keenum into the face of the team unnecessarily?
It was Parcells who played mind games with Phil Simms all those years, to great effect. It was Parcells who manipulated the Jets' quarterbacks so thoroughly that running back Curtis Martin once used the moniker "Vinny Foley" in explaining how the team came to view Vinny Testaverde and Glenn Foley as one being. It was Parcells who benched former No. 1 overall pick Drew Bledsoe for the undrafted Tony Romo in Dallas.
What will Zimmer and the Vikings do?
"You can just see Zim calling Parcells, and Parcells telling him they build the team on defense and the run game, and they shouldn't overpay the guy [Keenum] because they need to make sure they have a good middle linebacker," a defensive coach from another team said.
That doesn't mean the Vikings will let Keenum walk. It could make them less likely to go over the top to keep him. It could make a short-term solution such as the transition or franchise tag more appealing.
After all, teams with top-five defenses tend to win lots of games, even when their quarterbacks are average (or worse). That was demonstrated this postseason with Keenum, Nick Foles and Blake Bortles all reaching the championship round (and Foles the Super Bowl) with teams that ranked among the top four in points allowed. Denver won a Super Bowl that way after the 2015 season, helping Brock Osweiler get paid.
"People in the league will f--- this up and think Case Keenum can play on their team with their s----y defense," the defensive coach said. "It is the biggest risk going."
Yeah, but what about the stats?
It's generally fair to compare quarterbacks over the same number of starts to begin a career. That treatment would be less fair for any quarterback trapped in the Los Angeles Rams' historically bad 2016 offense. Before this season, Keenum made 14 of his 24 career starts for the Rams, including 13 last season. The Rams' overnight reversal and Keenum's overnight emergence justify striking those games from the record for a contractual analysis.
Keenum's 2017 season is a more relevant benchmark. And because Keenum made starts 25 through 38 with Minnesota, why not compare his production over those 14 starts to the corresponding starts for other quarterbacks? Thirty-nine quarterbacks made their 25th through 38th career starts over the past dozen regular seasons. Here is where Keenum ranks among them over that 14-game slice, ordered from his highest to lowest rankings:
Completion rate (67.0): Third behind Matt Schaub and Kirk Cousins.
TD-INT ratio (21-7): Third behind Tyrod Taylor (17-5) and Russell Wilson (23-7).
Passer rating (97.6): Fourth behind Cousins, Wilson and Schaub.
Total QBR (68.7): Sixth behind David Garrard, Schaub, Aaron Rodgers, Wilson and Cousins.
Sacks taken (22): Tied for ninth fewest.
Yards per attempt (7.4): Tenth behind Cousins, Schaub, Wilson, Jameis Winston, Cam Newton, Rodgers, Romo, Matthew Stafford and Philip Rivers.
Touchdown passes (22): Tied for 15th, which seems low, but Bortles and Ryan Fitzpatrick are 1-2 on that list, and the top 10 in QBR have between 21 and 26.
Again, the context for Keenum would change if he were suddenly playing for a team with a bottom-five defense and no running game. He did not play for that type of team this season, however, so there's a better chance teams will see him in a more favorable light -- especially if Shurmur is elsewhere.
Some key variables
What we don't know yet are some of the variables that will affect the market. The Kansas City Chiefs could trade Alex Smith. Andy Dalton or AJ McCarron could pop free from the Cincinnati Bengals. Cousins, Manning, Bortles, Bradford, Bridgewater, Taylor, Josh McCown and even Brees could be available. How teams view the college prospects will also matter.
What we do know for sure is that the market will value Keenum much higher this offseason than it did last offseason, when the Vikings signed him more as insurance for Bridgewater, their injured backup, than as insurance for Bradford, their chosen starter. One bad night in Philly isn't going to change that.