How will the Vikings handle Harrison Smith?

Sadly, it’s probably going to involve him being cut

For over a decade now, Harrison Smith has been a leader on defense for the Minnesota Vikings and one of the best all-around safeties in the National Football League. Unfortunately, it feels more and more like we’ve seen the last game for him in purple.

With three weeks remaining until the start of free agency in the NFL, the Vikings have a bit of a situation with Smith, specifically with his contract. As it stands right now, Smith has a cap figure for the 2024 season of just over $19 million according to Over the Cap. That’s the third-highest number on the roster, behind only Brian O’Neill and Justin Jefferson for players that are currently slated to be on the roster in 2024. (Kirk Cousins’ void-year dead cap hit is also higher, but we’re not counting that.

Smith didn’t have a bad season in 2023 by any real measure. Sure, it wasn’t prime Harrison Smith good, but considering that he just turned 35 it’s unlikely that he gets to that level again. The Vikings also aren’t necessarily hurting for cap space, but cutting Smith would give the team a significant boost in that area.

If the team releases Smith, they would have to take on a $7.8 million dead cap hit (again, based on Over the Cap’s numbers), but they would gain around $11.3 million in salary cap space. If he were designated as a post-1 June cut, the dead money hit would go down to around $3.9 million with a salary cap boost of $15.3 million.

If Smith were to be cut by the Vikings, it seems like they’d still be okay at the safety position given the way that both Camryn Bynum and Josh Metellus stepped up in Brian Flores’ defense last season. Obviously Smith’s knowledge and leadership ability aren’t things that the team could immediately replace, but that’s the sort of trade-off that needs to be made in a situation like this.

Smith is the longest-tenured member of the Vikings, having been with the organization since the team traded up to draft him in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft.

Smith did do a bit of a restructure last season to remain on the team, and I suppose that’s something that we could see again this season, but it just seems like this is the end of the line for one of the Vikings’ best defensive players of the last decade. It’s going to be rough to see the announcement that Harrison Smith has been released by the Vikings but, unfortunately, it’s something that we should probably be bracing ourselves for.