What Would a Byron Murphy Jr. Extension Look Like for the Vikings?
The Vikings seem likely to consider an extension for Byron Murphy Jr., their CB1 who is moving into the final year of his contract.
The former Cardinal jumped up from the desert during the 2023 offseason, agreeing to a two-year commitment offering a total of $17.5 million. All things considered, it’s a pretty modest total given that the defensive back is being leaned on as the CB1. If Kwesi Adofo-Mensah goes to the negotiation table, what kind of deal would he offer?
A Possible Byron Murphy Jr. Extension with The Vikings
The Vikings brought Murphy in largely due to his versatility.
He’s more than capable of moving into the slot, allowing some of the other corners to handle things along the boundary. Make no mistake, though: Murphy can be moved all over.
His initial season as a Viking involved snagging 596 snaps out wide, 214 in the slot, 68 in the box, and 9 at free safety. There were even 19 snaps along the d-line. So, a bit of a chess piece for Brian Flores. Across his fourteen games, Murphy had 57 tackles, 3 interceptions, and 13 passes defended. PFF gave him a 58.0 grade for his efforts.
In April, Flores took on a question about Murphy. The DC explained that his corner was “playing some really, really good football prior to his injury.” Not too long afterwards, Flores uplifts Murphy’s “leadership, his competitiveness, [and] his experience” as things that were “very, very positive for us.”
In fact, Flores goes on to praise “his position flexibility” while discussing the possibility of playing in the slot “a little bit more.”
The current high-end for corner contracts is around $20 million per season. Jalen Ramsey, Denzel Ward, and Jaire Alexander are the three who hit or exceed the lofty average. Plus, there are five other players hitting or exceeding $19M per season.
Now, the odd part of this discussion is that there’s then a large gap. A total of eight corners have an average of $19 million or beyond. Coming in at 9th overall in the NFL for annual average is Carlton Davis. His average is all the way down at $14,833,333.
Considering the context makes one wonder how high Murphy could go with an extension in Minnesota. He still has some youth — he’s 26 — and has the coveted flexibility. The issues are that he has battled some injuries and Minnesota may look to play hardball a bit in search of good value.
Moreover, Murphy is a good corner, but not an elite one. When he got his first chance at free agency, Murphy landed a deal that averaged $8.75 million across a pair of seasons. Definitely a raise over the rookie contract but far from some of the league’s really high-end contracts for corners.
One wonders, then, about seeing a couple of seasons added to his deal. He seems likely to surpass the $10M per year threshold, but it remains to be seen by how much. Regardless, getting into that kind of money would keep Murphy among the NFL’s top-20 corners.
Extending Murphy could lead to Minnesota clearing $6.38 million in 2024. Left untouched, Murphy will be carrying Minnesota’s fourth-largest cap hit into the season with a total sitting at $10,911,765.
Editor’s Note: Information from Pro Football Reference, PFF, and Over the Cap helped with this piece.
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K. Joudry is the Senior Editor for Vikings Territory and PurplePTSD. He has been covering the Vikings full time since the summer of 2021. He can be found on Twitter and as a co-host for Notes from the North, a humble Vikings podcast.