4 best active Minnesota Vikings player contracts
By Dustin Baker
No. 2 – Danielle Hunter (5 years / $72 million)
Seventy-two million dollars is a lot; that’s common sense.
Yet relative to the market, Hunter’s age, and his performance–the current contract is very team-friendly. Hunter is just 25 years old and has had six or more sacks in five straight seasons. The only active players to have six or more sacks in more consecutive seasons other than Hunter are Chandler Jones, Carlos Dunlap, Cameron Jordan, Aaron Donald, Mario Addison, and Von Miller. And that is basically because they all started their careers prior to Hunter.
Since joining the Vikings by the way of LSU five years ago, Hunter has the sixth-most sacks in the NFL while only starting 49 games (61% of all games). He did not start out of the gate but managed to oust longtime Vikings defensive end Brian Robison from his starting gig in 2017.
Think of it this way: in Hunter, the Vikings have a top five defensive end, and they are paying him the wage of approximately the 18th or 19th best EDGE rusher in the league. The discrepancy between the best EDGE and 18th-best EDGE in the business is about seven million dollars per year. See Frank Clark’s $21 million annually versus Hunter’s $14.4 million. Spread out over five years and that equates to a savings of nearly $35 million.