On Wednesday, the Vikings and Danielle Hunter agreed to a five-year, $72MM extension. The new deal, which will keep Hunter in place through 2023, is said to include $40MM in guarantees, giving the 23-year-old plenty of financial security. Still, many are wondering whether Hunter should have waited in order to get more out of the Vikings.
Here’s a look at some of the reactions to Hunter’s brand new deal:
- The deal is a team-friendly “steal” for the Vikings, Jason Fitzgerald of Over The Cap (via Twitter links) opines. Hunter, he feels, could have targeted Olivier Vernon‘s five-year, $85MM deal had he notched about ten sacks this year and entered the free agent market in ’19. Hunter’s deal gives him nearly as much as teammate Everson Griffen, but Hunter is significantly younger and is on his way to being equally productive. At minimum, Fitzgerald feels that Hunter would have been better served by waiting for the market to reset at $20MM/year when Khalil Mack and others sign their next deals.
- Hunter didn’t top Vernon, but Cowboys star DeMarcus Lawrence should blow right past him, Joel Corry of CBSSports.com tweets. As Corry notes, Lawrence and Vernon are both represented agent by David Canter.
- With Hunter locked up, Vikings GM Rick Spielman indicated that wide receiver Stefon Diggs and linebacker Anthony Barr may be next up for extensions (Twitter link via ESPN.com’s Courtney Cronin). “We want to keep all of our guys and we’ll try to see if there’s a way that we can do that because not only, those guys are very important to us and would love to get them locked up as well,” the GM said.
The Vikings are taking care of business and building a winner!
Hunter is younger than DeMarcus Lawrence and has more career sacks in less games. If Dallas pays Lawrence more than the 85M Vernon makes without him proving last year was no fluke they’re nuts.