Minnesota Vikings Are Under The Cap

With several bookkeeping moves, the Minnesota Vikings are under the NFL salary cap of just over $301 million. More accurately, the Vikings will be under the salary cap when the new league year starts next Wednesday. 

The Vikings entered the week roughly $45 million over the salary cap. It was a daunting hole but one that wasn’t expected to be too difficult to fill. 

The first moves:

Aaron Jones release: saves $7.75 million

Javon Hargrave release: saves ~$11 million

Jonathan Allen release: saves ~$6.5 million

The releases won’t officially happen until Wednesday. For now, the three moves are projected. There’s still the chance that the Vikings might be able to swing a trade for the above players. That could save even more cash. Seeing as the Vikings have already made it known that the players will be released, a trade is unlikely. The Aaron Jones release is the most painful. The Jonathan Allen is the most surprising. In only two seasons, Jones has been excellent on and off the field. Despite all his time with the Green Bay Packers, he will always be a Viking to me. Allen’s release was surprising as the Vikings will carry ~$17 million in dead cap space. For a savings of only ~$6.5 million, I thought that it might be best if he was still on the roster. It felt like a better option than essentially paying ~$17 million for him to play elsewhere. He didn’t play to the level that many expected but he was solid throughout last season. The Vikings do have some young defensive linemen that will get an opportunity boost with Allen’s release. 

More moves:

Justin Jefferson contract restructure: saves ~$18 million

Christian Darrisaw contract restructure: saves ~$9 million

Byron Murphy Jr. contract restructure: saves ~11.3 million

These were all expected. Mechanisms are often built into the bigger contracts that allow teams to move money around to save money in the present. It gives teams the ability to “massage” their salary cap situation to best fit their current needs. 

Final move:

Ryan Kelly retires: ~$8.3 million

This was both sad and a relief. Ryan Kelly is a great football player. In a perfect world, he’d be the Vikings center for at least another season and help carry the team to great heights. This isn’t a perfect world and Kelly has had a worrisome number of concussions. His health, both now and moving forward, is far more important than the game. 

Current Estimated Cap Space:

~$26.8 million

With a few simple moves, some painful, the Vikings moved from roughly $45 million on the wrong side of the salary cap to roughly $27 million on the right side of it. Further cap space could be created with a contract extension for Brian O’Neill (he’s earned it) and contract adjustments with T.J. Hockenson (his contract is high for the recent on-field production). 

Unless something unexpected happens, the Vikings won’t be swimming in salary cap space but they will have enough to be able to add some players in the fast-approaching spending spree of NFL Free Agency. Some secondary help would be nice.