Evidence Suggests Anthony Harris Unlikely to Return to Vikings in Free Agency

If you put all the pieces together, it appears Anthony Harris will be playing elsewhere next season.

With the start of the 2020 free agency period less than a week away, it's becoming more and more apparent that safety Anthony Harris is unlikely to return to the Vikings next season.

It's not that the Vikings have any issues with Harris or concerns about his talent. A 6-foot-1, 200-pound missile of a playmaker, he's the perfect fit next to veteran star Harrison Smith on the back end of their defense. Harris also happens to be an extremely high-character person who is respected by everyone in and around the organization. In a perfect world, he'd be back in purple for years to come, continuing to ascend to stardom as half of the best safety tandem in the NFL.

Unfortunately for the Vikings, this isn't a perfect world. And for a variety of reasons, re-signing Harris appears to be unrealistic.

Ultimately, it comes down to money. The Vikings won NFC North titles in 2015 and 2017 thanks to a young, talented, homegrown core of players – Stefon Diggs, Adam Thielen, Danielle Hunter, and Eric Kendricks, to name a few. As they handed out extension after extension over the years to keep that core intact – and guaranteed $84 million to Kirk Cousins – they knew it would eventually lead them into a precarious salary cap situation.

This offseason, that time has arrived. And with Harris next in line to get paid big money, the Vikings no longer have enough of it to go around. Minnesota is one of just two teams who currently have less than $2 million in cap space, and they're only below the salary cap threshold because Everson Griffen opted out of his contract, freeing up $13 million.

The Vikings will create much more cap space in the coming weeks and months. They'll release players (Xavier Rhodes and Linval Joseph are two obvious candidates), restructure contracts, and presumably give Cousins a back-loaded extension that reduces his cap hit in 2020. But even once that happens, re-signing Harris is unlikely due to the massive raise he's about to command and the way the Vikings perceive the importance of the position he plays.

In 2019, Harris rose from relative anonymity to become one of the league's breakout stars. The former undrafted free agent from Virginia began his first full season as a starter by recovering a fumble and intercepting Matt Ryan twice in a Week 1 win over the Falcons. Harris finished the regular season tied for the NFL lead with six interceptions, including two of the nine combined INTs thrown by Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers. He then added one more with a clutch pick of Drew Brees in the Vikings' stunning wild-card round upset of the Saints.

When it was all said and done, Harris had been graded as the best of the NFL's 86 qualifying safeties by Pro Football Focus. And he did it while making just over $3 million, good for the 38th-highest salary at his position.

As a result of his incredible season, the 28-year-old Harris is about to be properly compensated in free agency. He's projected to go from making a grand total of $5.3 million over his first five years to receiving $13-14 million annually on a new multi-year deal, placing him among the likes of Tyrann Mathieu and Earl Thomas as one of the highest-paid safeties in the league. There are going to be a lot of teams lining up to pursue an elite turnover-creator in the middle of his prime.

On Tuesday, Harris went on Ian Rapaport's podcast and spoke on his impending decision.

"For me, it's just about being open," Harris said. "I love Minnesota, I love the culture and my teammates there, it's a great relationship. I've been there a while, and I'm looking to continue to grow as a player, continue to grow as a person, continue to grow as a leader. I'd like to go back there, but also, I think it's smart to take a look at all of my options and just be open and really take my time with making a decision."

When asked by Rapaport if returning to the Vikings was a realistic possibility, Harris didn't rule it out.

"I don’t see a reason why I'm looking to go somewhere else," Harris said. "It’s not like I don’t want to go back to Minnesota. For me, I know the guys in that locker room, I know the coaches, I know the system. The city is a good city. The community is a good community. Everything there has been good. So for me, realistically, that’s an option for me. It's going to be up to people to handle their jobs and find a way to see if that's a realistic possibility. Anything's possible. I'm not really closing out any doors.”

However, even though he may want to remain a Viking, this is almost certainly the one chance for Harris to cash in on a lucrative deal during his career. In the end, the money will speak loudest. Harris's confidence and drive helped him go from undrafted rookie to emerging star. He knows what he's worth.

"There's a lot of talent on [the Vikings], a lot of great leaders," Harris said. "But I do see myself as a top talent and a good leader, not just on that team but in general."

Even if the Vikings create a fair amount of cap space, out-bidding other suitors for Harris would take up a sizable chunk of it, inhibiting their ability to add and retain players in other areas. One main reason why re-signing Harris may not make sense is that safety isn't usually believed to be one of the game's most valuable positions. And with Smith having a 2020 cap hit of just under $11 million, the Vikings would be allocating an eighth of the estimated $200 million salary cap towards their starting safeties if they brought back Harris.

At the NFL Combine in Indianapolis two weeks ago, Mike Zimmer cited positional value while seeming to imply that the team would have to let Harris walk in free agency.

“I love Anthony,” Zimmer said. “If he doesn’t come back, I think he’s earned whatever he’s got, but if you put up the positions that are the most important on defense, it’s probably not going to be safety. We’ll figure out a way if he’s not back.”

Another reason to expect Harris to sign elsewhere: it would go against the track record of Zimmer and Rick Spielman to dole out a huge contract to a second safety. In the past, they've removed themselves from bidding wars for players like Devin McCourty and George Iloka when the prices got too steep, as noted by the Star Tribune's Ben Goessling. Given the success they've had using low-cost players like Andrew Sendejo and Harris next to Smith, Zimmer and Spielman likely feel confident in their ability to find a cheap, adequate starter via free agency or the draft if Harris goes elsewhere.

Reports have come in from sources around the league that back up the idea that Harris's days with the Vikings are numbered.

Following the combine, ESPN's Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler reported that a source told them the Vikings are "bracing for life without [Harris]." On Monday, Chris Tomasson of the Pioneer Press reported that the Vikings are interested in re-signing Sendejo in free agency, which wouldn't make much sense if the team was planning on making Harris a competitive offer.

The Vikings aren't going to franchise tag Harris; they've only used the tag twice this century. Sometime as early as next week, when the new league year begins and free agency gets underway, a team is going to spend a lot of money on a long-term deal for the NFL's highest-graded safety. It could be Harris's hometown team, the Redskins, who have been rumored to be interested. It could be the Cowboys, the Browns, the Dolphins, or any other safety-needy team with plenty of cap space.

It could still be the Vikings. But at this point, all the available evidence seems to suggest that it won't be.

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