Greenway returning to Vikings, but with a pay cut

Chad Greenway will be back with the Vikings in 2015.

The veteran outside linebacker agreed to a restructured contract, a league source confirmed Saturday. Greenway has a new base salary of $3.4 million with $1 million guaranteed. He can make up to $4 million through bonuses, including $500,000 in per-game roster bonuses.

By persuading Greenway to accept this pay cut, the Vikings created $3.225 million in cap space.

Greenway was originally slated to make $7 million in 2015, the final year of his deal. But it seemed unlikely the Vikings would let the 32-year-old play at that salary, one of the highest on the team.

At the end of the season, Greenway, the team's 2006 first-round draft pick out of Iowa, said he was receptive to restructuring his deal so he could play at least one more season with the Vikings. But he also said that the role the team envisioned for him would have to make sense for him to take a pay cut.

"It's hard to be in a situation where you're watching," Greenway said at the time. "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."

Earlier this month, General Manager Rick Spielman said he wanted Greenway to stick around, too.

This is the second offseason in which Greenway has taken a pay cut to remain in purple. Last season, he sacrificed $1 million in base salary to keep his spot on the team.

Greenway is one of the longest-tenured active Vikings players. He has played 125 games, all but one of them as a starter. At one point, he had made 90 consecutive starts, most among NFL linebackers at the time, but the streak ended early in the 2014 season.

In Week 4, Greenway, who had played a week earlier despite a broken hand and three broken ribs, missed his first game since his rookie season. He sat out three games before returning in Week 7 and climbed to the team lead in tackles by early December. But he hurt his knee in Week 16, ending his season and his chances of a seventh consecutive season of leading the Vikings in tackles.

Still, Greenway's six consecutive seasons were tied with Scott Studwell for the franchise record.

According to the Vikings' tracking, Greenway, a two-time Pro Bowl selection, has made 1,203 tackles on defense in his nine seasons in Minnesota, which ranks fourth in franchise history.