Safety Anthony Harris announced on Sunday that he had signed his franchise tender with the Minnesota Vikings.
With Harris signing the deal, which wasn’t exactly a surprise, the Vikings will have two of the best safeties in the league back with Harris and Harrison Smith.
That’s especially important for a team that lost cornerbacks Xavier Rhodes, Mackensie Alexander and Trae Waynes this offseason.
Last season, Harris ranked as Pro Football Focus‘ No. 1 safety in the league with a grade of 91.1. Smith ranked third with a grade of 88.4.
The Broncos were the only other team to have two players in the top 10 with Justin Simmons ranking second and Kareem Jackson ranking seventh.
It’s not ideal to make safeties super-high paid players. Harris and Smith have a combined cap number of more than $21 million. But the Vikings created that room because nobody else in their defensive backfield is making much money at all. Third-year cornerback Mike Hughes leads the way with a cap hit of a mere $1.377 million.
These two safeties probably won’t cover up all the mistakes an inexperienced cornerback group makes this season, but they’ll do as good of a job as any other tandem out there.