Danielle Hunter’s Trade Price Tag May Not Be High as Advertised
Two players for the Minnesota Vikings have chunky cap hits for the 2022 budget – Kirk Cousins and Danielle Hunter.
Cousins is a polarizing athlete, so the get-rid-of-him fodder is all over the internet. These are some teams Cousins might join if the Vikings actually trade their QB1. His $45 million cap hit is the obvious place to start for a team seeking to fix its underwater cap situation.
Trading Cousins would save $35 million in cap dollars for the 2022 season. New general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah may or may not trade Cousins. We shall see. When Minnesota rolled out its new head coach one week ago, it sure didn’t sound like Kevin O’Connell endorsed a Cousins trade.
Hunter is the other question mark. His cap hit in 2022 is $26 million, a steep figure for a player who missed 79% of all football games during the last two seasons. A healthy Hunter is a beastly productive player, setting the tone for a usually-good Vikings defense. Without Hunter, Minnesota’s defense stinks, guaranteed to collapse in the final two minutes of the 2nd Quarter and 4th Quarter. It’s like clockwork.
So, like Cousins, trading the expensive player elsewhere – Hunter, in this case – is on the docket for discussion. Should the Vikings invest megabucks in an EDGE rusher who plays 21% of the time? Probably not. However, Hunter’s injury history only began in 2020. Before that, he was durable.
Fans tend to believe Hunter would fetch a 1st-Round draft pick inside of a trade. The healthy version of the LSU alumnus probably would. Yet, per Pro Football Focus, the “1st-Round stuff” may be overstating value.
In an article by Brad Spielberger from Pro Football Focus detailing potential offseason trades, Hunter was sent to the Buffalo Bills – just like Stefon Diggs – for a substantially lower sum than 1st-Round draft capital.
Per Spielberger, Buffalo would send a 2nd-Rounder and 4th-Rounder to Minnesota for the 27-year-old Hunter. That trade package certainly isn’t insulting, but it is not the “1st-Rounder and change” some Vikings fans believe Hunter is worth. Spielberger wrote about the hypothetical trade:
“Hunter will still be just 27 years old in Week 1 of 2022 and is a force multiplier for any defense. The Bills used their first and second-round picks in 2021 on edge defenders Gregory Rousseau and Carlos Basham, but all three players can also kick inside and line up opposite guards. Hunter could be the final piece that puts the Bills’ roster over the edge. Last but not least, a reunion with former Vikings wide receiver Stefon Diggs could help ease the transition for Hunter to a new franchise. However, it could be too hard for Adofo-Mensah to “sell low” on an elite pass-rusher.”
Brad Spielberger | Pro Football Focus
It is unclear who is more likely to be traded, Cousins or Hunter. Cousins is durable. Hunter has been the antithesis of durable as of late. To a QB-needy team, Cousins likely commands a 1st-Rounder simply because his position is considered “more important” than the defensive line.
But if Hunter is the one traded, it is not a no-brainer for his trade value to send a 1st-Round pick in exchange to the Vikings. The conversation needs adjustment. To date, trading Hunter is perceived through a lens of snagging a 1st-Round draft choice – sometimes in the Top 10 spots.
Hunter is a fantastic football player who will spend 2022 trying to prove his injury maladies were outliers. If he departs the Vikings, a 1st-Rounder is not the bottom shelf for his trade value. Adjust your expectations.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sally from Minneapolis. His Viking fandom dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).
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