Minnesota Vikings Free Agents

The Minnesota Vikings will have some difficult personnel decisions to make prior to the March 13 start of the new league year. They have 20 players with contracts expiring. 13 of those are set to become unrestricted free agents. The most difficult decisions of the 13 are linebacker Anthony Barr and defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson. The Vikings surely want both back but it will take some serious numbers juggling to afford one of them, let alone both. Salary cap maestro Rob Brzezinski will have his work cut out for him. Here are the Vikings 20 free agents.

Unrestricted Free Agents

Anthony Barr, LB
Sheldon Richardson, DT
Latavius Murray, RB
Tom Johnson, DT
George Iloka, S
Nick Easton, G
Tom Compton, G
Brett Jones, G
Aldrick Robinson, WR
Dan Bailey, K
Marcus Sherels, CB
Ameer Abdullah, RB
Trevor Siemian, QB

Restricted Free Agents

Anthony Harris, S
Rashod Hill, OT

Exclusive Rights Free Agents

Matt Wile, P
C.J. Ham, FB
Craig James, CB
Cedrick Lang, OT
Josiah Price, TE

Unrestricted free agents that I'd ike to see return:
Anthony Barr
Sheldon Richardson
Latavius Murray
Tom Johnson
Nick Easton
Aldrick Robinson
Dan Bailey
Marcus Sherels

Barr and Richardson are the biggies.

Of the restricted and exclusive rights free agents it's a safe bet that Anthony Harris, C.J. Ham, and Matt Wile will be back. The others will probably be back if the Vikings see them as part of the team's immediate future.

According to the various sites that track such things, the Vikings have anywhere from $5.8-6.9 million in cap room. That's not a lot. It might be enough to retain little more than Harris, Ham, and Wile. There's always ways to create cap room. There's always ways to structure a big contract so that it fits in the salary cap puzzle. A few years ago, the New Orleans Saints were able to sign safety Jairus Byrd to a giant deal despite having about a nickel in cap space. Here are some things that the Vikings can do to boost their available cap space.

Release:
Andrew Sendejo-5.5 cap savings
Mike Remmers-4.55 cap savings, 1.8 dead money

Re-structure:
Kyle Rudolph
Everson Griffen
Xavier Rhodes
Linval Joseph
-I suppose any player with a sizable deal (in excess of $10,000,000) is a candidate for a re-structure. That would include Riley Reiff and Harrison Smith as well.

Looking at things very optimistically, the Vikings can possibly boost their available cap room to around $30,000,000. It's tough to say whether that's enough to retain Barr and Richardson and the rest of their other priority free agents  I'm generally a very optimistic person but I'm not very optimistic that the Vikings will be able to keep both Barr and Richardson. If I had to pick one, that player would be Barr. But it's a very tough call.

Being on this side of the walls of the Vikings' Eagan facility, it's silly to get into the particulars of how exactly they can create $30M in cap space and how they use it. From my seat I can see the Vikings re-signing the following:
Anthony Barr
Nick Easton
Aldrick Robinson
Dan Bailey
Marcus Sherels
Anthony Harris
Rashod Hill
Matt Wile
C.J. Ham
Craig James
Cedrick Lang
Josiah Price
-I can easily see the Vikings replacing Bailey with a less expensive kicker. Maybe they draft another one (that would get fans smiling) but the kicking carousel has to end. And it has to end with one that doesn't miss extra points.

Barr's contract would probably be the only one that exceeds $5M, maybe even $4M.

The Vikings have to fix the offensive line. That's offseason priority #1, #2, and perhaps #3. They need at least two immediate starters on the line. Perhaps Nick Easton is one of those starters. He started and played well in 2017. He was injured in presseason and missed the 2018 season. As a result, he's somewhat of an unknown. More accurately, the Vikings opinion of him is an unknown. Free agency and the draft has to provide those two immediate starters. Free agency doesn't start until March 13. Over the next month, many of the best free agents will be either signed or tagged. Over the next month, hundreds of free agency plans will pound through my head. Some of those plans may end up here. For now, the Vikings have two big free agents that they may or not be able to keep, several productive players that they may or not be able to keep, a position group that has to improve, and very little salary cap space to do any of it.

Welcome to Minnesota Vikings 2019 Offseason.