Analyzing Vikings salary cap situation after official Mattison release
The Vikings made the release of running back Alexander Mattison official Monday. With Mattison now off the books where does that leave the Vikings with free agency rapidly approaching?
According to Over The Cap, the Vikings now have around $37.3 million in available cap space when the new league year starts next Wednesday.
After Mattison's release the Vikings now have $4.7 million in dead cap money this year. Mattison accounts for $1.25 million of that with another $3.1 million coming from Dalvin Cook's cut last June. Esezi Otomewo's release last August counts for $154K against the cap.
Speaking of dead cap hits, the Vikings will be on the hook for $28.5 million should Kirk Cousins not be re-signed before March 13 and another $14.9 million if Danielle Hunter doesn't have a new deal by that date as well.
Minnesota has several big contracts that could free up a hefty amount of cap space through restructures. Here are the candidates and how much cap space restructuring their deals could free up. (Note: These numbers are only estimates from Over The Cap.)
- Brian O'Neill - $8.9 million
- T.J. Hockenson - $7.1 million
- Harrison Smith - $6.6 million
- Byron Murphy Jr. - $5.9 million
For those keeping track at home that's around an extra $28.6 million of available cap space to use this offseason.
The Vikings could also restructure Josh Oliver and Garrett Bradbury's contracts for an extra $2.7 million each and Dean Lowry's deal for an extra $1.9 million. Redoing those deals on top of the contracts above would bring the total total cap space to about $73.3 million before Cousins' and Hunter's dead cap hits.
Bradbury and Lowry are also cut candidates but not right away. Minnesota would incur dead cap hits of $3.2 million (Bradbury) and $2.4 million (Lowry) if they were to cut either before June 1. They would free up around $4.5 million in usable cap space with those cuts.
If the Vikings were to wait until after June 1 to make those cuts they could free up around $8.9 million in cap space while only taking on $1.4 million in dead money this year.
