Vikings Pass Rusher Predicted Part Ways Breakout..

Edge rusher Danielle Hunter will not be easy to extend for the Minnesota Vikings, and he is not alone in this regard.

Hunter presents the Vikings with problems because has been awesome in 2023, can’t be franchise-tagged next offseason and is probably going to be too expensive heading into his age-30 campaign for Minnesota to justify a new contract.

DJ Wonnum, on the other hand, should be relatively affordable in free agency by comparison, but may not be worth the money he can get elsewhere across the league.

Alec Lewis of The Athletic on Monday, December 4, authored a mailbag in which he answered a question about the Vikings’ “appetite” to bring Wonnum back on an extension. Lewis’ answer was more or less that a deeper dive into the outside linebacker’s numbers doesn’t bode well for his return to Minneapolis.

On 300 snaps this season, 51 defenders have rushed the passer. According to Tru Media, Wonnum’s pressure rate places it 43rd out of those 51. His pressure rate has decreased as well from year to year. He applied pressure to the quarterback on 9.9% of his snaps in 2022. That percentage has decreased to 8.9 percent this year. In 2022, his win percentage was 8.2 percent; by 2023, it was only 6.7 percent.

Why then does it seem like he’s taken a step forward? Most likely, splash plays produced it. Wonnum recorded four sacks the previous year. He already has six for this season.

Regarding an extension, the Vikings are cognizant of the gap that will soon exist at edge rusher. Wonnum and Danielle Hunter are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents. Although Wonnum’s dedication and work ethic are valued by the Vikings, his overall performance is still far from satisfactory.

Demands in DJ Wonnum’s contract might outweigh his value to the Vikings

The way this season has played out for Wonnum has driven up his value in a traditional sense, though perhaps not in the ways particularly appreciated by analytics stat-head/general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.

Wonnum, a fourth-round draft pick of the Vikings in 2020, is playing the final season of a four-year, $4 million contract. With a salary cap number under $3 million in 2023, Wonnum represents significant value as a player who has stepped in for Marcus Davenport as the team’s second starting outside linebacker alongside Hunter.

Davenport, hampered by injury for much of the year and fresh off the IR, has played in just four games this season after signing a one-year, $13 million contract to join Minnesota in the spring. As a result, Wonnum has started 11 of the 12 games in which he has appeared and is on pace for a career year in both sacks and QB hits. He is also on pace for the second-most quarterback pressures of his NFL tenure.

That success has led Over The Cap to set Wonnum’s 2023 valuation at $8.2 million, which is almost three times the amount of his cap hit this season and more than eight times the amount of the annual average salary on his current deal. Hence, his tremendous current value.

But as Lewis pointed out, Wonnum’s play-in and play-out production has actually dipped since last season. That could simply be a small regression for a 26-year-old presumably still in his prime, or it could be an indication that Wonnum is peaking now and won’t be worth the kind of money his valuation suggests he should earn on his next deal.

Vikings May Face Complete Overhaul at Edge-Rusher in 2024

The core of the Vikings’ pass rush this season consists of Hunter, Davenport, and Wonnum; all three could be gone by March.

That kind of turnover at a premium position is difficult for any team to navigate, let alone one that blitzes at a higher rate than any other defense in the league under coordinator Brian Flores, who might also leave Minnesota in 2024 for another shot at a head coaching position.

But the Vikings won’t get where they want to go by paying good players as though they are great players, and that figures to be the biggest problem with bringing Wonnum back on an extension.

The Vikings might get a better deal by pursuing a top edge-rusher in free agency whose career trajectory is more obviously upward, even if he costs more than Wonnum. The same probably applies to a rookie prospect that Minnesota originally discovered four years ago, somewhere in the middle rounds of the upcoming draft.