Vikings' Use of Void Years Indicates They Plan to Contend in 2023
Earlier this month, some of the Vikings' roster moves suggested they were thinking less about winning this year and more about creating cap space for a window of contention that would begin in 2024. Releasing Eric Kendricks and Adam Thielen — and, in particular, eating roughly $13.5 million in dead money this year by not designating Thielen's release as post-June 1 — gave off that impression.
Kendricks and Thielen are past their primes, but they're still productive players who can help you win football games. And if the Vikings were laser-focused on the 2023 season, they could've pushed half of Thielen's dead money into 2024.
Recent moves have altered that impression. I'm talking, specifically, about the Vikings' use of void years to lower the cap hits of their free agent acquisitions this year.
Adding void years to a player's contract allows you to prorate their signing bonus across the length of their deal and those additional years, lowering their cap hits. However, it means that when the deal voids and that player is no longer on the roster, all of the remaining money in those void years accelerates and hits the cap. The Vikings' previous regime used void years with players like Anthony Barr and Dalvin Tomlinson, and the current regime has used them with every major player they've signed this offseason.
Marcus Davenport has a one-year deal with four void years, so his 2023 cap hit is just $5.96 million. Byron Murphy has a two-year deal with three void years, making his '23 cap hit just $2.81 million. Same with Dean Lowry, whose cap hit is $2.07 million. Josh Oliver has a three-year deal with two void years; his cap hit is $2.55 million.
All of those deals, plus Harrison Smith's restructured contract, have the Vikings currently cap compliant, although they'll need to continue creating space to make future additions.
While it's true that getting under the cap was one of the primary reasons for the Vikings using void years on these contracts, they could've gotten cap compliant via plenty of other avenues. The fact that they used these void years — and by definition, pushed money into the future — seems to indicate that they're still planning on contending in 2023. That's the "competitive" part of what GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah has described as a competitive rebuild.
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