Departure: The Vikings are expected to part ways with their $17 million Pro Bowl superstar….
Vikings Predicted to Part Ways With $17 Million Pro Bowl Superstar
The Minnesota Vikings limped to the finish line of the regular season, losing six of their last seven contests, and more immediate pain appears to be in store for the franchise’s frustrated fan base.
Aaron Schatz of ESPN predicted on Sunday, January 7, that Minnesota will part ways with outside linebacker Danielle Hunter who proved himself among the fiercest and most disruptive pass-rushers in the NFL in 2023.
“The Vikings will allow edge rusher Danielle Hunter to leave in free agency despite the fact he set a career-high with 16.5 sacks,” Schatz wrote. “Hunter’s cost will be too expensive going into his age-30 season (likely over $20 million per year), and Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah will look to get younger on defense.”
Not only did the linebacker tally 16.5 sacks, he also led the league with 23 tackles for loss and accumulated 40 QB pressures and 22 QB hits, per Pro Football Reference. Hunter was a no-brainer Pro Bowl selection for the second straight season and for the fourth time in the last six years.
The only two times he failed to earn those honors over that span were in 2020, when he missed the entire season due to a fluky neck injury that required surgery, and in 2021, when he suffered a torn pectoral after tallying six sacks through seven games.
Hunter will turn 30 years old in the middle of next season, which will be his 10th in the NFL. Too much tread on the tires boding ill for a player seeking an expensive, multiyear deal is a fair argument for letting Hunter walk, and general managers like Adofo-Mensah who make analytics-based decisions will always try to build their rosters ahead of that curve. That said, there are exceptions to the rule.
Hunter has not been an unreliable player due to physical ailments over the course of his career. And other than taking a little longer to reach the QB on splash plays than some of his elite edge-rushing counterparts around the NFL, there isn’t much of a case to make that Hunter is slowing down.
The team had the opportunity to ink the pass-rusher to a multiyear contract over the summer, the first year of which would have counted toward 2023. That move would have taken a year off the end of any deal the team must make with him now if it hopes to keep Hunter around. And after a career season, his price has undoubtedly gone up. Spotrac currently projects Hunter’s market value at $20 million annually over a new three-year deal.
Instead, the Vikings renegotiated the final season of Hunter’s five-year, $72 million contract in 2023 and remade it into a one-year deal worth $17 million. That agreement also included $3 million in bonus incentives, all of which Hunter hit, bringing his pay up to $20 million for the campaign.
Adof0-Mensah’s choice not to extend Hunter before this season cost the franchise considerable leverage in any future negotiations it may have with the player, and could have priced Minnesota out of his services completely.
The front office’s stubbornness in choosing not to shop Hunter ahead of the league’s October 31 trade deadline, which fell two days after QB Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles tendon in a win over the Green Bay Packers that moved the Vikings to 4-4 on the season, erased any chance for the franchise to get a return on one of the more valuable assets any team can ever possess — an elite player at a premier position who is in the midst of a career campaign.
