NFL Notes: Buccaneers, Falcons, Vikings

Buccaneers

• Rick Stroud reports that Buccaneers DE Jason Pierre-Paul has reported to the team for the start of mandatory minicamp this week after skipping voluntary OTAs.

Falcons

• Josina Anderson reports that a contract proposal was sent by Julio Jones‘ reps and the response they received from the Falcons was not satisfactory, which is why Jones will be skipping mandatory minicamp.
• Jones’ agent, Jimmy Sexton, didn’t want to comment on the matter when contacted by D. Orlando Ledbetter: “I’m not going to comment publicly about the situation. I’m going to let them say whatever they want to say.”

Vikings

The Vikings have some notable players in line for long-term extensions and GM Rick Spielman admitted that it’s going to be hard to balance all of this from an economic standpoint.

“The hardest thing right now is the economic structure on our team where we have all these high-priced guys now because they all deserve to get paid the way they’ve been playing,” Spielman said, per Chris Tomasson. “But economically, we’re not going to go out there, you can’t play fantasy football and have $3 (million), $4 (million) or $5 million backup guys. Those are going to be the young guys that we’ve drafted or we’ve developed.”

While it’s a tough position, Spielman admits that “it’s a good problem to have.”

“It’s a good problem to have, but we have a very high-priced roster right now,” Spielman said, per Tomasson. “And eventually some of those guys are going to get aged out, just like we had some of our other Pro Bowlers (Williams bros, Hutch, Allen)… and you have to replace them.’’