12:41pm: The five-year deal is worth $42.5MM and includes $20MM guaranteed, tweets ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter.
12:38pm: Griffen’s deal will pay him in the upper-echelon of pass-rushers over the first three seasons, per Rapoport (via Twitter).
12:24pm: The Vikings have re-signed defensive end Everson Griffen to a “huge” five-year deal, reports NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport (via Twitter).
A third-round pick from USC in 2010, Griffen has 17.5 sacks in four seasons with Minnesota. He’s played in all 16 games each of the last three years, but started only one contest.
We passed along a link earlier this month that Griffen “badly” wanted to return to Minnesota and that talks were ongoing between the two sides. With Jared Allen set to test the open market and unlikely to return, Griffen becomes the Vikings’ premiere pass rusher.
ProFootballFocus.com rated Griffen as the No. 19 4-3 defensive end in 2013 (subscription required).
Don’t understand this move. Hard to image another team offering something similar for Griffin’s services. Classic example of a franchise bidding against themselves.
He can very well turn into the best DE in the NFL, but that doesn’t matter as they overpaid him now. I don’t think any other team would have offered him something in the neighborhood of 7 million per year.
This deal sucks for the Seahawks and Bennett. Surely the 8.5 mill per year that this contract is worth is going to be the starting asking price for Bennett…at that point I don’t see the Hawks resigning him for 4/36 or something around that.