Pro Football Rumors
Vikings right tackle Brian O’Neill is angling for a new deal as he enters the last season of a five-year, $92.5MM contract extension. Nothing came together under interim general manager Rob Brzezinski, who at the helm for four months, but things could change with new GM Nolan Teasley in place. In the wake of Teasley’s recent hiring, talks with O’Neill are expected to pick up, according to Kevin Seifert of ESPN.
Now the Vikings’ longest-tenured player, O’Neill made it clear he wants to stay put, saying (via Seifert): “Five years ago when I went through a similar process, I said, ‘I want to be here and there’s nowhere else I want to be. That rings more true now than ever. If you’ve been around me long enough, you know how much this place means to me. There is unequivocally nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Minnesota is the only franchise O’Neill has known since he entered the NFL as a second-round pick in 2018. The former Pitt Panther took over as a starter about a month into his rookie season and hasn’t looked back. Since his second year in the league, O’Neill has started in all 109 appearances and gone to a pair of Pro Bowls (2021 and ’24). The Vikings made him one of the league’s highest-paid right tackles in 2021. He continues to rank among the elite in that regard, as his $18.5MM average salary sits seventh at the position.
The NFL had a $182.5MM salary cap when O’Neill signed five years ago. That seems minuscule compared to today’s $301.2MM figure, which should help O’Neill and other prominent players looking for extensions this summer. In O’Neill’s case, the Vikings will have to take age and recent injury issues into consideration before authorizing a second sizable contract. O’Neill is a couple of months from playing his age-31 season, which he and the Vikings hope will go down as his fourth full campaign. The 6-foot-7, 310-pounder logged a 17-start 2024, but that was sandwiched between two 14-game seasons. He missed three games in 2023 with a sprained ankle and another three last year as a result of heel and knee injuries.
To O’Neill’s credit, he continued to hold his own when he was healthy enough to take the field in 2025. He finished as Pro Football Focus’ 12th-ranked tackle out of 84 qualifiers. Meanwhile, Vikings starting left tackle Christian Darrisaw checked in at 44th overall during a 10-game, injury-shortened season. Darrisaw has played just 17 of 34 games since the Vikings awarded him a four-year, $113MM extension in July 2024. He tore his left ACL in October 2024 and was unable to fully bounce back from it last season. The Vikings have since invested in a couple of new backup tackles, having signed former Bill Ryan Van Demark for a fully guaranteed $4.2MM and drafted Caleb Tiernan in the third round.
If the Vikings are going to rebound from a nine-win 2025 and return to the playoffs this year, it...
