Dalton Risner thought he was going to land a very healthy contract last offseason, after he finished his rookie deal with the Denver Broncos and they failed to offer the type of extension he felt he deserved, prior to hitting free agency.
But then, he landed on the open market in March and found that there were a lot less teams waiting to scoop him up than what he had anticipated, even after proving himself a very worthy starting NFL guard as a 4-year starter from 2019-2022. How baren was the market? Enough so that he was not on an NFL roster when the regular season started.
In fact, Risner was not signed by a team until the Minnesota Vikings finally scooped him up in the middle of September, between weeks 2 and 3. And he doesn’t want that to happen again.
Dalton Risner struggling to find free agent suitors (again)
So, leading up to free agency, it has been reported by Darren Wolfson (SKOR North, KSTP) that it was Risner’s goal to avoid what happened last year. Wolfson said on Friday’s episode of Mackey & Judd (SKOR North) that Risner wants to be done with free agency within the first 48 hours of it officially starting tomorrow.
But noticeably, there hasn’t been any steam surrounding Risner during the negotiating period of free agency, which goes until Wednesday at 3 p.m. CDT. Dalton is confused over the lack of attention he has received from guard hungry teams too, and he took his frustrations to Twitter on Tuesday afternoon.
The former Bronco turned Viking says all he wants is fair value, not “the bag”. But as of Tuesday afternoon, he clearly struggling to find any value on the open market. Dalton proved himself a good, not great, left guard when he finally got on the field last season.
He fell off slightly, from what he had shown in his first four seasons, but is that because of a decline or is it more to do with joining a new team late? Risner’s 67.4 PFF pass block grade was the worst of his career (though still not bad at all) and his run block grade (which has never been very good) dipped all the way down to 50.0, also a career low.
| Season | PFF OVR | PFF RBLK | PFF PBLK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 57.1 | 50.0 | 67.4 |
| 2022 | 61.1 | 53.4 | 72.6 |
| 2021 | 68.5 | 63.2 | 73.6 |
| 2020 | 61.3 | 53.7 | 69.6 |
| 2019 | 64.4 | 60.3 | 69.8 |
Should Minnesota Vikings re-sign Risner?
I like Dalton Risner a lot and believe the Vikings should think seriously about bringing him back. But at the same time, it could come down to what they want out of their left guard. As you can see above, Risner is an above average starting guard, in terms of pass blocking.
The same cannot be said about his run blocking, which is a big problem for a Minnesota team that has struggled to run the football under Kevin O’Connell and a team that just lost it’s high-end quarterback to the Atlanta Falcons. If Kwesi & Co are prioritizing run blocking when searching for a new starting guard this offseason, Risner is unlikely to be their first choice.
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