The Minnesota Vikings were thin with the cornerback experience during 2020. Now it looks like 2021 may be the swan’s song for their oldest cornerback.
Vikings reporter Chris Tomasson with the Pioneer Press tweeted on Monday:
Salary cap analyst Jason Fitzgerald said that the fifth year option for 2022 to #Vikings CB Mike Hughes would be approximately $ 9.7 million. Vikings are unlikely to take Hughes’ fifth year option until the first week of May deadline.
– Chris Tomasson (@christomasson) March 8, 2021
Hughes just turned 24 in February and is the mainstay of the longevity of all the Vikings on the list at the moment – if you can believe that. Minnesota spent a large capital recruitment in Hughes in 2018, as the team tried to recover from defecation in the NFC Championship in 2017. This is the draft that, instead of Hughes, the Vikings could have recruited Lamar Jackson, Courtland Sutton, Darius Leonard or Braden Smith. You know – the draft of revisionist history.
To put it in context, the Hughes era began in the same game in which quarterback Kirk Cousins donned a Vikings helmet for the first time. The San Francisco 49ers stormed the US Bank Stadium as a six-point underdog in week 1 of 2018 and lost to the Vikings 24-16. This is relevant to Hughes because the then-21-year-old snatched a pass from Jimmy Garoppolo and ran for 28 yards en route to a pick-six. So far, Hughes is the youngest defensive player in Vikings history to score a touchdown.
Unfortunately, except for a vigorous 2021 campaign, that moment could end up like Hughes’ magnum opus.
The only questionable attribute surrounding Hughes’ employment with the Vikings is his health. He has lost half of all football games since joining the NFL. When he plays, Hughes is very good – or at least he is projecting along a reasonable development path.
Some NFL teams – probably not the Vikings based on Tomasson’s tweet – will employ a cornerback at age 25 with untapped potential during the 2022 season. To stay with Minnesota and put that possibility into practice, the Vikings’ front office would be forced to disburse about $ 10 million in 2022. Hughes alone is not worth that monetary commitment.
Should Hughes perform supernaturally in 2021, general manager Rick Spielman can still explore maintaining his services beyond 2021. But the stakes are a little more complicated when the fifth-year option is turned down. Use Mitchell Trubisky’s free 2021 agency as an example. He is not overly talented at all, but the Bears can enjoy his quarterback bid in a reserve role next season. It can still happen, but Trbuisky is a true free agent who will have readmission talks with other teams next week.
To be clear, Hughes will play an important role in the 2021 Vikings. He will not be kicked out of the squad before that, unless something bizarre happens. Hughes’ presence on the depth chart now feels strangely like “sauce.” Why? Because no keen Vikings fan expects Hughes to play anything close to a full season. If you do – great – it can help with the continued development of other young corners, Cameron Dantzler and Jeff Gladney.
Overall, however, today’s Tomasson news is approaching the statement that Hughes is a mini bust. An excellent 2021 campaign would certainly change the narrative. That really has to happen, however – which is a remote possibility, considering Hughes has only played 24 games since the beginning of 2018.