Vikings Likely to Get a Deal Done with Retirement Candidate
The Minnesota Vikings will have to answer countless personnel questions this offseason. Retirement decisions are generally out of their hands and with C.J. Ham and Harrison Smith, there are two strong candidates for that. Ham has already announced his retirement after a long career with his hometown team. The jury is still out on Smith.
A forgotten player in that conversation is Andrew DePaola, the team’s long snapper. The special-teamer is 38 years old and his contract will expire in March. Minnesota will either have to sign him to a new deal or find someone else to snap the ball. The special teams trio of Andrew DePaola, Will Reichard and Ryan Wright was one of the quiet strengths of the 2025 team.
Ben Goessling of the Star Tribune weighed in on this year’s free agents and he commented on DePaola, suggesting this might not be the end of the road for the veteran.
“The four-time All-Pro will be 39 in July, but the Vikings are in no rush to change long snappers after six years of stability at the position. They’ll likely get a deal done with DePaola for the 2026 season that keeps him in Minnesota for a seventh year.”
Continuity on special teams often gets overlooked, but it can quietly swing games over the course of a season. With a young kicker in Will Reichard and an established punter in Ryan Wright, keeping the long snapper position stable would eliminate one potential source of volatility in an otherwise reliable unit.
Long snappers don’t sign humongous contracts, so that will hardly have a sizeable impact on the salary cap. His last deal went three years for a total of $4,025,000. Since he signed that contract in 2023, the pay has risen slightly. Reid Ferguson of the Buffalo Bills signed a four-year deal worth $6.5 million a year ago. On average, that’s an annual salary of $1,625,000, about $300,000 more than DePaola.
At long snapper, every new contract is generally slightly eclipsing the previous benchmark.
The good news is that DePaola deserves every penny. He is the most decorated long snapper of his generation, having three Pro Bowls as well as two first-team and two second-team All-Pro nominations. He’s widely regarded as the top guy in his field, and the accolades confirm it.
Long snappers mostly fly under the radar and DePaola isn’t any different. They only enter the spotlight when they mess up a snap, and DePaola just doesn’t. He is, however, a major part of the kicking operation that just earned kicker Will Reichard his spot on the first-team All-Pro roster with an exceptional season.
The third piece in the puzzle is punter Ryan Wright, who is, like DePaola, in the final weeks of his existing contract. Wright is on the receiving end of DePaola’s snaps, whether he’s punting or holding for kicks. After a strong season, it makes sense for the Vikings to keep them together for continuity’s sake.
DePaola was added to the roster during the 2020 season when the special teams struggled. The veteran was available that year, after missing all but one game in 2018 with a torn ACL. After failing to clinch a roster spot with the Panthers in 2019, he sat out the season. After a long break of about 26 months, he returned to action in November 2020.
In his career, DePaola has worn the colors of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (48 games), Chicago Bears (16 games), Oakland Raiders (1 game; yes, Oakland), and the Vikings (88 games).
Stability at specialist positions is rarely a headline topic, but it’s often a priority internally, especially for a team that leaned heavily on its special teams consistency in 2025.
At this point, there’s little indication he plans to finish his career elsewhere.
Editor’s Note: Information from PFF, Over The Cap, and Sports Reference helped with this article.