The Minnesota Vikings said goodbye to Danielle Hunter this offseason — one of the league’s best pass rushers last year — and will attempt to replace him with a big investment in the younger, but less consistent, Jonathan Greenard.
Greenard has played four NFL seasons to this point, all with the Houston Texans. He put up a career-high 13 sacks last season, up 5 from the 8 sacks he tallied in 2021. However, he also missed nine games and tallied just 2 sacks during the campaign in between, which came two years after a 1-sack rookie performance across 13 games played.
Minnesota agreed in March to pay Greenard $76 million over the next four years, with $38 million of that fully guaranteed. Ryan Fowler of Bleacher Report on Thursday, August 29, referred to the deal as the second-worst investment in an edge rusher across the entire league, behind only the $120 million the Buffalo Bills have committed to Von Miller over a six-year agreement that runs through 2027.
“One season of immense production in Houston earned Jonathan Greenard a healthy pay day. It’s the nature of the market in which teams are consistently in search for sack artists, but I’d pump the brakes on expectations,” Fowler wrote. “[Thirteen] sacks in year four for the 27-year-old was enough to open the wallet of Vikings [general manager] Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, but it’s a heck of a bet on a player who totaled just [1] in his rookie season and [2] in 2022.”
Jonathan Greenard Can Offer Vikings Similar Value to Danielle Hunter in Right Scenario
Filling Hunter’s shoes will be next to impossible for Greenard, as the long-time Viking tallied 17 sacks and a league-leading 23 tackles for loss during his final year in Minnesota.
Ironically, Hunter went to Houston on a two-year deal worth $49 million ($48 million guaranteed) to replace Greenard there during the same offseason that Greenard came to Minnesota to replace Hunter.
The Vikings could find value in the swap based on the amount invested against the statistics produced. Hunter will play his age-30 season in 2024 for considerably more money than Minnesota will pay Greenard in his age-27 campaign.
The Vikings will also pay Greenard considerably less over the next two years than the Texans will pay Hunter. Beyond that, Minnesota can get out of half of Greenard’s deal if things don’t work out, while Houston is inextricably tied to Hunter for the first two campaigns of his 30s.
Greenard doesn’t have to play as well as Hunter to prove a better value to the Vikings — both by sheer comparison of their actual contracts, as well as via a comparison of Greenard’s tangible deal against whatever Minnesota would have had to pay Hunter to retain him after a contentious summer between the two sides in 2023.
Vikings Won’t Ask Jonathan Greenard to Serve as 1-Man Wrecking Crew
Greenard wasn’t the only edge rusher the Vikings added this offseason, which could play into his favor both statistically and from a value standpoint in any arguments about whether he was or wasn’t a good signing at $76 million over four years.
Minnesota signed Andrew Van Ginkel, formerly of the Miami Dolphins, who put up a career-high 6 sacks last season. The Vikings inked Van Ginkel to a two-year deal worth $20 million total that includes $10 million in guarantees.
The franchise also selected rookie Dallas Turner with the No. 17 overall pick out of Alabama as the second edge rusher taken in the draft. Turner tallied 14.5 tackles for loss and 10 sacks in college last season and is the future of the franchise at the position until further notice.
The dual presence of Van Ginkel and Turne.r in the pass-rush rotation should help Greenard get more favorable matchups more often than if he was playing with unproven and/or untalented players opposite him on the edge.
His presence, in turn, should help his fellow pass rushers get home more frequently as part of a symbiotic relationship, in which one can’t measure Greenard’s value by counting statistics alone
