Vikings Week 2 of Free Agency—Solving the Matrix

Vikings Territory Breakdown

The second week of free agency has begun and the Vikings have some work to do. They spent the first week moving and shaking up their roster in a frantic effort to get under the salary cap—actually succeeding in signing several new free agents despite their desperate cap number. (Once again, I will never understand the complex “Matrix” of the salary cap—thank goodness the Vikings have the One in executive VP of football operations Rob Brzezinsk.) There was significant bloodletting last week, but several tourniquets were applied.

The Vikings signed CB Byron Murphy from the Arizona Cardinals—applying some remedy to the bloodiest position on the team. He was a protégé of Patrick Peterson in Arizona and now follows his mentor to the Vikings (who left last week for Pittsburgh). Despite a recent back injury, Murphy could be a huge addition to the secondary, which already has some injury questions to answer (Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth). The restructuring of safety Harrison Smith also goes a long way to settle the listing secondary—but more must be done.

The Vikings also signed former Packers DE Dean Lowery, which hopefully does more than fulfill the Purple’s annual Packers free agent signing quotient. Perhaps more noteworthy is they finalized their deal with DT Marcus Davenport, who took a couple of days to finalize some contract language before signing. It concerned the Purple Faithful, but in the end, the piece was added to the D-line puzzle.

They also signed Alexander Mattison to a deal that throws that Purple Faithful concern into the Dalvin Cook arena, restructured Kirk Cousins’ contract to get some cap room (while rumors swirled regarding Minnesota as a “wild card” landing spot for Lamar Jackson) and re-signed a number of others—in particular solidifying their kicker and long snapper for the coming season. Joe Oberle and Mark Craig, those two old guys who like to talk Purple, will analyze it all on the Vikings Territory Breakdown podcast. Tune in and check it out.

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