Marcus Davenport signs one-year deal with Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings and defensive end Marcus Davenport, a former first-round pick in 2018, have agreed to a one-year, $13 million deal, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Mike Garafolo and Tom Pelissero reported on Monday evening.
Davenport was in a limited role with New Orleans last season, only playing 50 percent of the team’s snaps while logging only 29 tackles, two tackles-for-loss and a 0.5 sack. Though Davenport recorded a career-high nine sacks in 2021 with 39 tackles in 11 games, showing flashes of being a productive pass-rusher. He’s missed time due to injury in all five seasons of his career, logging 142 career tackles, 25 tackles-for-loss and 21.5 sacks in 63 games (32 starts).
That said, this remains a high-upside acquisition for Minnesota — and possible insurance if they release Za’Darius Smith, who would save the team $12.2 million if they released him as a pre-June 1 designation, per Over The Cap. Minnesota entered Monday with $7.4 million in cap space.
The Vikings have already made cost-cutting moves to free-up cap-space by releasing Adam Thielen, Eric Kendricks and Cameron Dantzler. So it wouldn’t be surprising if second-year general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah also freed Smith — who asked to be released — in order to essentially cancel out the $13 million given to Davenport, who’s nearly four years younger.
We’ll see what type of role the defensive end plays in Brian Flores’ defensive scheme, though the expectation is that Davneport will play a pivotal role for the Vikings pass rush alongside Smith (if he remains with Minnesota), Danielle Hunter, DJ Wonnum and Harrison Phillips. Minnesota is in the midst of a serious re-tooling process, so swinging for reasonable upside is the right decision, even if it’s for a little more money than we might expect.
This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.
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