3 Vikings that could be shocking cuts before the 2022 season

Eric Kendricks – LB

As we mentioned earlier, the Vikings are switching to a completely new defensive scheme under Ed Donatell this year. So even if a Minnesota player performed well in Mike Zimmer’s defense for the last few seasons, there’s no guarantee that they will be a fit in the team’s new defense.

Eric Kendricks has been a great linebacker for the Vikings since he arrived in 2015. However, his entire tenure in Minnesota was spent in Zimmer’s defense.

Next season, Kendricks will be a part of a base 3-4 defense for the first time since he was in college at UCLA.

He’s a talented enough linebacker that most are assuming he likely won’t have a problem adjusting to the Vikings’ new defensive scheme. At the same time, we really just won’t know until Kendricks gets on the practice field.

If things aren’t going well with him in the middle of the defense this summer, Minnesota might decide to move on from him before the start of the 2022 regular season and save almost $10 million in cap space.

The high amount of cap space the Vikings can create if they cut Kendricks after June 1 is something to pay attention to as well. If a player that Minnesota is interested in becomes available before the 2022 season begins, they might just show Kendricks the door in order to create more spending money.