ESPN suggests one last offseason move for the Vikings

And it sounds like they’re already working on it

With just a couple of weeks to go before the start of Training Camp, the Minnesota Vikings are undoubtedly making last-minute preparations before everyone heads to Eagan. While the Vikings have turned around their salary cap situation a bit, the folks from ESPN have suggested one last offseason move for our favorite team.

Behind the great E$PN paywall, analyst Field Yates suggests that the purple can put a bow on this offseason by putting together an extension for star safety Harrison Smith.

The supremely talented Smith is entering the final year of a five-year extension that he signed in 2016, and he has earned every penny of that deal so far. While extending a 32-year-old isn’t something you see frequently, Smith should be an exception. He’s still playing at a high level and rarely misses time. (He has just six games missed over the past seven seasons.)

Smith has a cap figure of around $10.2 million for this season, but he doesn’t have anything left in his extension in terms of guaranteed money. An extension would likely lower his cap figure for this year and give him some of those guarantees in the hopes that he will end his outstanding career in the same place that he started it.

The good news is that the Vikings are already way ahead of the game on this one, as extension talks with Smith have “picked up significantly” over the course of the last few days, according to Darren Wolfson of KSTP in the Twin Cities. Wolfson also reports that the Vikings have entered into extension talks with offensive tackle Brian O’Neill, who is in the final year of his rookie contract.

While the Vikings are working on these things, it wouldn’t be surprising to not hear any sort of formal announcement until after Training Camp gets underway. If anything does happen on the contract extension front for the purple, we will certainly have news of it right here for you.