The top two remaining free agents the Vikings have are cornerback Patrick Peterson and linebacker Anthony Barr. According to Chris Tomasson of The St. Paul Pioneer Press, the former is more likely to remain in Minnesota than the latter.
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As Tomasson notes, Peterson has spoken often about wanting to remain with the team. The 31-year-old signed a one-year, $8MM deal last offseason after a decade with the Cardinals. His level of play – 45 tackles and one interception in 13 games – led to a PFF grade of 63. That is a long way from the All-Pro standard he set during his time in Arizona, but it could be enough to earn him an extended stay in his new home.
“Pat Pete’s a great person, a great player in this league for a long time”, said general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah. “You want to make sure you respect a player of his caliber, his expertise in this league, but also the reality of the situation we’re in from a salary-cap standpoint.”
As for Barr, 30, Tomasson notes that the acquisition of Za’Darius Smith could lead him elsewhere. Between Smith and Danielle Hunter – whom the team could be looking to extend, rather than trade, as once thought – the Vikings appear to be set at the OLB spot in their new 3-4 scheme. The four-time Pro Bowler has been with the team since 2014, but has missed 20 games over the past two seasons. A new contract would be complicated by the fact he already carries of dead money cap charge of $10.8MM.
“That’s going to be a tougher situation to navigate”, Adofo-Mensah said of Barr. “Never say never. Obviously, there are things salary-cap related with acceleration and things like that that made that kind of a challenging deal.”
At present, the Vikings likely have enough cap room to afford bringing back one, but not both, of Peterson and Barr. From a positional standpoint, the former has a clearer path to being a starter, which explains the team’s openness to a new contract. If that does come to fruition, Barr could very well be in Peterson’s position from one year ago, needing to find a new team after several high-quality years with the one that drafted him.
They should move on from Barr, probably should have let him walk when he almost signed with the Jets a few years back.
They would have but he was one of somebody’s favorites, whos no longer with the Vikings, I’m just saying. Lol
link to dailynorseman.com
Scroll down into the comments and see Krauser’s reflections on Anthony Barr that builds off of the sentence, “I thought that 2020 would’ve been enough to show most Vikings fans why Barr was so important, but if not I’ll write it out here.”
Said someone won’t be back thank goodness!! Old school coaches like that are over and out.
No way Vikings should bring back a slower Barr in his good years he wasn’t that good can’t cover RBs or TE lazy and always gave up big plays also Peterson spoke during the season he didn’t want to return to Vikings but no team is calling for him so now he wants to come back l say let these tired old guys go we’ve already got good LBs draft a center and corner and we are ready go Vikings
So I do not live in MN so I guess it is possible Peterson said he did not want to return. Yet all I see online is he wants to return (going back to December).
If Peterson came back that would be fine at the right price. CB is definitely a need.
For the skeptics, Peterson is on camera with Zone Coverage’s Luke Braun saying that he wants to return to Minnesota. I think that was from around the time of the Combine. And Braun was asking PP because there were already reports about his wanting to return.
We need Peterson back bad. He was good last year and we saw the difference when he was out. It sucks to see barr go even though he didn’t live up to the expectations I though he would.