Vikings UFA profile: OLB Marcus Davenport

With the 2023 season in the books, Inside the Vikings is taking a look at all 22 of Minnesota's pending unrestricted free agents over the course of a few weeks. We're examining their past and speculating about their future, particularly the likelihood that they could be re-signed by the Vikings this offseason. We started from the least important (Hakeem Adeniji) and are working our way up to the big fish (Kirk Cousins).

Vikings UFA profile: OLB Marcus Davenport

Age: 27
2023 stats: 4 games, 2 sacks, 7 tackles
2023 contract AAV: $13 million

After five seasons with the Saints, former first-round pick Marcus Davenport signed a one-year, $13 million deal with the Vikings last offseason. It was a "prove-it" type of deal for a player who had been highly productive — posting elite PFF grades and pressure rates — when healthy in New Orleans, but had also struggled with injuries and seen his sack totals fluctuate wildly.

Davenport's season in Minnesota was nothing short of a complete flop. He came into the regular season with an ankle injury that limited him to four snaps in the season's first three games. Davenport played against the Panthers and Chiefs in Weeks 4 and 5 and looked as advertised, recording two sacks and seven pressures in those contests. But then he suffered a high-ankle sprain against the Bears in Week 6 and never returned to the field.

When the injury in Chicago happened, it wasn't viewed as a season-ending situation. But even after he got out of his walking boot later in the season, he didn't play another snap. "There still are some desire questions there," KSTP's Darren Wolfson said in December. "Ultimately, it's the player. The player really has to want it."

Now Davenport is a free agent who is unlikely to get anything near the $10 million guaranteed he received from Minnesota last year. And even though the Vikings have both of their starting OLBs (Danielle Hunter and D.J. Wonnum) hitting free agency and will incur $6.8 million in dead money if Davenport's contract voids, it would be shocking if they choose to re-sign him. He's talented and still only 27 years old, but the Vikings will almost certainly let some other team deal with his injury-prone nature in 2024.

Previous Vikings UFA profiles: