Sports
Vikings Territory: Is Exploring A Reunion With Everson Griffen The Right Move?
Griffen is still a very loved guy by many players and coaches in the locker room and has the kind of leadership that it's hard to find.
July 9, 2021
Since Griffen opted out of his contract in 2020, we’ve seen him saying that he wants to be back. Last week it happened again, according to Paul Allen. Although Griffen is arguably one of the best DE to wear purple and gold, he would probably bring more cons than pros. Let’s start with the pros.
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He and Hunter can do wonders on the improvement of second-year DJ Wonnum and rookies Patrick Jones and Janarius Robinson. Griffen is still a very loved guy by many players and coaches in the locker room and has the kind of leadership that it’s hard to find.
The biggest con, though, is how things will be with Kirk Cousins. For those who don’t remember, in January Griffen said that Kirk is trash and Zimmer never wanted him. At the time, he was already saying that he wanted to be back. Although it happened six months ago, it’s fair to assume things may be weird between him, Cousins, and Zimmer.
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Another thing important to keep in mind. Next year Cousins’s cap hit is $45M, the Vikings need to extend O’Neill, Smith, and probably will make Hunter one of the highest-payed EDGEs in the NFL. The NFL and the NFLPA set a ceiling of $208.2M. Assuming that’s the next year’s cap, only Cousin’s contract would take 21.6%. If the Vikings don’t use the $14M they have now, they can have up to $222M to spend next year, an extra money that would really come in handy.
This press release was produced by Vikings Territory. The views expressed here are the author’s own.
