When the new league year started in the National Football League just about two hours ago, fans of the Minnesota Vikings saw a sequence of words that they never thought they’d see:
“The Minnesota Vikings have released safety Harrison Smith.”
However. . .before the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments begins, let’s clarify a few things.
The Vikings have designated this as a post-1 June cut, and it’s a largely procedural move. The reason for it is that Smith has still not yet decided whether or not he will be coming back for a fifteenth NFL season in 2026. The team will welcome him back in 2026 if he decides to return, but this move simply gives him more time to make that decision while not taking up a roster spot as the Vikings move through free agency.
Smith also had a $25 million base salary guarantee that was set to trigger if he was still on the roster on Friday and. . .well, that’s not happening now. That’s probably a pretty smart move.
Reports are saying that the team and Smith are in talks and that if Smith does decide that he wants to return for the 2026 season, the team would welcome him back.
It certainly looked like Smith was ready to call it a career in the final week of this past season at U.S. Bank Stadium, as the fans sent him off the field when he was subbed out for the final time with a rousing ovation and the stadium announcer drew attention to the fact that he was coming out of the game. But, as we’ve seen with so many other cases, there’s only one person who can make the final decision on whether a player is done or not. I guess we’ll have to wait just a little bit longer to see if the Hitman is really hanging it up or not.
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