Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer thinks linebacker Chad Greenway can still serve as a starter next year if he returns for his 10th season.

Greenway, who turns 32 in January, is owed a $7 million base salary next season. The Vikings will either restructure Greenway's contract for a second consecutive offseason or waive him if the two sides can't agree on a reduced salary or the Vikings are ready to move on.

"I love Chad; Chad's a good guy," Zimmer said. "You'd have to ask him, but I think even at his stage in his career he probably learned some things this year. And we asked him to do a lot of different things he probably hasn't done before. He's the kind of guy that we like to have."

It's the first time since Greenway's rookie season that he missed a game. He was inactive four times due to rib and knee injuries. Greenway suffered the knee injury in Week 16 against the Dolphins that forced him to miss the season finale against the Bears.

"I feel pretty good even though I missed the first games I've missed in a long time," Greenway said. "The rib injury was really kind of a fluky deal and obviously this knee thing would have put anybody out. You play a lot of football and the rib injury could have happened 10 times over. I don't feel like I've become injury prone or my age has caught up to me anyway. That can happen to anybody at any point. I feel like I can continue to play somewhere – hopefully here."

Greenway doesn't want to uproot his family out of the Twin Cities for more money elsewhere. But it will be difficult for Greenway, who would enter his 10th season, to accept a backup position next year.

"It's hard to be in a situation where you're watching," Greenway said. "I've just never done that and I don't really plan on it. I'm going to go somewhere I can compete to play. If you're in a position where you had to go somewhere else, it's a combination of those two things — where are you going to play and have success. I want to do that here."

Regardless of what the Vikings decide to do in the offseason, Zimmer expects to be the first one to hear from Greenway once a decision has been made.

"I don't know what's going to happen with him or anybody else," Zimmer said. "I would be the first one, if it wasn't going to work out or Chad didn't want to be here, I'd expect that him and I would have the first conversation of anyone. I have total amount of respect for him and I will treat him with the same kind of respect."