The Vikings brass, and Jared Allen, spent last night and today courting free agent wide out Greg Jennings by taking him out to the famous Manny’s Steakhouse and touring the Winter Park facilities.
Now, Jennings is a Minnesota Viking under a five year deal, which fills a huge need on the wide receiver depth chart.
Jennings played with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay for his whole career, but will now be playing with Christian Ponder who needs to continue to improve in order to maintain his status as the franchise’s quarterback of the present and the future.
Jennings, 29 years old, is coming off of an injury plagued season that turned out to be the worst of his career. He managed only 36 catches for 366 yards and four touchdowns. Still, the assumption is that he is fully healthy now and will strive to return to the 1,000 yard plus receiver that he was known as, which the Vikings need so desperately.
With Percy Harvin being traded to Seattle the Vikings have Jerome Simpson, Jarius Wright, and Stephen Burton on the Vikings depth chart that could still see some movement this offseason. The Vikings are still expected to use some combination of their 11 draft picks to add youth and talent at the position.
Jennings has played 96 games in his career and has caught 425 balls for 6,537 yards and 53 touchdowns.
His new deal is expected to be $47.5 million over the five years, with $18 million guaranteed, which is a $9.5 million per year average.
Rick Spielman had a lot of kind things to say about his staff at Thursday’s press conference prior to introducing Leslie Frazier who described Friday as a “great day for the Minnesota Vikings.” Frazier also placed an emphasis on Jennings having high character and leadership qualities, which are the types of statements that were all too predictable following the trade of Harvin.
“I’m excited, today is a great day, and I’m looking forward to what the future holds,” said Jennings right off the bat who went on to describe his first walk into free agency and give his respects to the Green Bay Packers organization.
“It was just a family feel. It felt comfortable,” Jennings said of his visit with the Vikings who said the team is a contender for whom the window is now opening, not closing. He also said the move was selfish in that he is looking forward to playing with Adrian Peterson who commands the attention of an entire defense.
Jennings also talked highly of Christian Ponder’s game tape and feels he has matured, and will continue to mature, as a passer in the NFL and is looking forward to helping him out with that.
“It’s a fresh new start. A Change,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the change.”
Jennings said that his choices “pretty much” came down to Minnesota and Green Bay, and then cited his dinner with Jared Allen as a big reason why he made the decision he did.
Jennings ended his conference by saying, with a huge smile, that it is important to note he is currently 29 years old and will not be 30 until after the season starts.
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On a positive, We have a #1 receiver, The last one here wasn't healthy allot of the time.
They seem to think he is back to health, Go for the 1OOO yard season Greg!
He likes the match up with everyone up in the box against A.D. :)
I feel okay about this. Overpaid tho....Adam, approximately what does that leave in cap space?
Not sure, as a lot depends on teh structure of this deal. I imagine we are now in the warning zone, though.
I still think we have enough money to spend on the draft picks, but I think we will end just under the cap, barely. I think we got him cheeper than you could expect with us playing outdore in the college stadium for in a couple of years.
this will give Christian a wideout who can abuse one-on-one covarage, and a reliable target.
I think Jennings would love to be the main focus in the passing game as well as having one-on-one all the time.
I'm torn on this one. The negative: inuries, age, cap space. The postive: healthy, contributor, fantastic outlet for a young and struggling Ponder? I guess if nothing else, let's assume we use one of our number one picks on a WR. Tutor for that pick, Wright, (Childs?)?
This bad boy can go either way.
What were the other options???
There really wasn't anyone else available that will give the Vikings what they needed in terms of both a guy that can produce on the field, and help lead a young group of receivers at practice and in the meeting rooms. Frazier mentioned his leadership at the press conference and I think that's a big reason why they were willing to pay him what they did. Sounds like the first three years will pay out $27 million, so while the dollars may increase a little in the last couple years, he's still going to make out quite well on this even if he's released before the 5 years are up. It's not really a bad deal for the Vikes either, sometimes you have to pay more than you want to get a guy. I was hoping it would come in around $7-8 a year, they went up to $9.5. The cap hit might not be too bad this year, they could give him a $10 million signing bonus and minimum base salary to keep it under $3 million total for this season.
well im glad we finally got a top tier wideout who wants to be here....but i do believe ur missing a wideout on the depth chart, a guy by the name of greg childs....and we havent heard anything more about the urlacher reports, are we still pursuing him?
childs is a very, very long shot to come back
Id like to see us draft Keenan Allen/Tavon Austin and LB Minter. That would be about as nice as we could ask for.