As expected, the Vikings will be making center Garrett Bradbury an impending free agent. Per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler (on Twitter), the Vikings won’t pick up the offensive lineman’s fifth-year option. We heard late last month that this was the likely outcome.
Bradbury would have been eligible to earn a $13.2MM 2023 salary via the fifth-year option. As our own Sam Robinson recently pointed out, because all offensive linemen are grouped together under the franchise tag system, the foundation for the fifth-year option setup, centers and guards see their option salaries spike because of tackles’ higher wages.
As a result, the Vikings thought that $13MM+ salary was too high for a player of Bradbury’s caliber. However, their decision to decline the fifth-year option doesn’t necessarily mean the player isn’t in their future plans.
Bradbury was the 18th-overall pick in the 2019 draft, and he’s started each of his 45 games since entering the NFL. Pro Football Focus hasn’t been particularly fond of his performance in the NFL, and following a 2021 season where they ranked Minnesota’s O-line 23rd, the site had Bradbury as the second-worst player on that unit.
My biggest hope with the regime change is that maybe just maybe we could develop a solid line.
Looks better than last year already.
Defiantly, going after some maulers for change would be nice
They hired a coach off the Shanahan tree. That scheme lends itself to movers over maulers. Bradbury is in that mold. He just isn’t very good.
And yet not only didn’t they draft a center in the recently concluded NFL draft, they also let their back-up at Center (who had cost them a draft pick to obtain in the first place) walk as a free agent. Must be a bunch of optimism towards the UDFA Center that they signed.