The Minnesota Vikings are back at training camp, and the NFL is never one to miss a marketing opportunity.
This upcoming weekend has been dubbed “Back Together Weekend” as fans flood their local team’s facilities to watch practice. Teammates will get reacquainted with each other after a few weeks off, and everyone will look forward to the upcoming season. But for Danielle Hunter, getting “back together” comes with a caveat.
Hunter reported to training camp, but he’s not exactly with the team. When the Vikings hit the practice field this week, Hunter was nowhere to be found. When reporters asked Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah about the situation, they offered some version of the “ongoing dialogue” rhetoric that could have been be the team’s marketing slogan over the past three months.
Like Hunter’s exact whereabouts inside TCO Performance Center, it’s unclear what the future holds as the star edge rusher seeks a new contract. But heading into this season, the Vikings need to ask themselves how desperate they should be to retain Hunter.
The Hunter situation goes back to 2018 when he signed a five-year, $72 million extension. At the time, the contract was lauded as a team-friendly deal, but it quickly turned into one of the most complicated negotiations in franchise history.
Hunter became one of the most dominant pass-rushers in the NFL and watched as some of the other top edge rushers cashed in on triple-digit contracts. Hunter’s camp continually wanted to go to the negotiating table to try to rectify their mistake. But after spending their remaining cap space to keep the core of the 2017 team intact, the best they could do was a series of band-aids.
In retrospect, it’s curious why the Vikings and Hunter didn’t reach a long-term agreement. There have been other instances during the Rick Spielman era where a contract has been replaced with a more lucrative deal but. However, that never happened with Hunter either due to his agent or Minnesota’s desire to maintain some kind of flexibility.
Even as things got ugly before the 2021 season, the Vikings still worked out a short-term solution instead of dealing Hunter for assets. The reasons for doing so are obvious from a fan perspective, even more so when factoring in Mike Zimmer’s defense.
The Zimmer Era began in 2014, and he promptly made edge rushers the defense’s centerpiece. Edge rushers accounted for 52.8% of all pressures and accounted for 54.9% of all sacks during Zimmer’s eight seasons in Minnesota. These numbers were especially good when Hunter was in the lineup.
When Hunter was healthy from 2015 to 2019, the Vikings averaged 301.6 pressures and 25.8 sacks per season. When Hunter either missed significant time due to injury (2020, 2021) or was still in college (2014), those numbers dropped to 247.6 pressures and 38.3 sacks per season.
These numbers reflected Hunter’s importance to Minnesota’s defense and played a critical role last year. Playing under Ed Donatell, Hunter led the Vikings with 10.5 sacks while Za’Darius Smith racked up 10 sacks. The Hunter and Smith duo also led the way for the Vikings. They accounted for 53.9% of the team’s 38 sacks and 47% of the team’s 310 pressures.
With this in mind, it brings clarity to the Vikings decision to pay Hunter an $18 million roster bonus in March 2022. Donatell’s system relied heavily on getting pressure from the edge. Keeping Hunter with the addition of Smith was supposed to be the engine of the defense, but it also created an aura around Hunter.
Because Hunter has been such an important piece to the Vikings’ defense, it makes sense why fans would want to give him his money and move on. But with the switch to Brian Flores, Hunter’s presence is more of a luxury than a necessity.
Flores spent three years as the Miami Dolphins’ head coach and used several methods to generate pressure on the quarterback. Zimmer’s defense generated high pressure and sack totals from his edge rushers. However, Flores dialed it back, generating 42.3% of his pressures and 40.6% of his sacks from edge defenders.
There are a few caveats to these stats, most notably that Flores didn’t have a talent similar to Hunter during his time in Miami. But even after selecting Jaelan Phillips in the first round of the 2021 draft, the Dolphins didn’t go after a big-time pass-rusher until trading for Bradley Chubb after Flores’ departure at the end of the 2021 season.
Does this mean edge rushers are the running backs of Flores’s defense? Absolutely not. But does it mean that Flores can live without Hunter? Absolutely.
The Vikings signed Marcus Davenport to a one-year, $13 million deal this past offseason to add some punch to their edge rushing unit. They also have rotational edge rushers D.J. Wonnum and Patrick Jones II along with prospect Luiji Vilain to make up for any loss.
Even with the talent drop-off, Flores could rely on other positions to pick up the slack. That includes Harrison Smith or Josh Metellus blitzing from the safety position, Brian Asamoah sent from linebacker, and even the possibility of more interior pressure from Harrison Phillips and Khyiris Tonga.
Fans still may not be convinced that ditching Hunter is the right move, but it’s also noteworthy that the Vikings’ defense was still awful with Hunter on the field last season. If his impact is as minimal as the numbers make it out to be, it might make sense to trade Hunter to another team that gets more out of their defensive ends.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are a potential suitor, and Hunter is currently following them on his Instagram account. While this could be a coincidence, edge rushers generated 60% of Jacksonville’s sacks and 55.7% of its pressures from last season. Although they play more of a 3-4 style of defense, Hunter could fit in and be more of a factor for a team that ranked 26th with 35 total sacks last year.
With $21.3 million in cap space, the Jaguars have the financial means to give Hunter his payday. With 11 picks in the 2024 draft, they could also offer a package that’s enticing to the Vikings, which could lead them to make a move.
The Vikings and Hunter will be “back together” for this weekend. Even if Hunter is watching from the Kellen Mond Memorial Broom Closet, there’s a chance the two sides could agree on a deal and be officially together in Week 1. But there’s also a chance that there’s a shocking trade before the season begins.
