Vikings to sign Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jonathan Allen to three-year, $51 million deal

The Vikings didn’t let Pro Bowl defensive tackle Jonathan Allen leave Minnesota without a contract.

Allen, a 30-year-old former Washington Commanders starter, agreed to terms Tuesday, the team announced. The contract came together in the early morning Tuesday, according to a league source, during Allen’s free-agent visit to the team’s Eagan headquarters.

The Vikings and Allen agreed to a three-year deal with a base value of $51 million that includes over $23 million guaranteed at signing, according to NFLPA salary data. He can earn another $10.5 million through incentives.

The $17 million annual average is a hefty payday for a ninth-year defender, but Allen fills a need in the middle of a Vikings defensive line that hasn’t garnered much attention from the current front office until now.

Allen made the Pro Bowl in 2021 and 2022, a two-year span in which he amassed 26 tackles for losses and 16.5 sacks.

He’ll boost a Vikings pass rush that has been productive and blitz-happy under coordinator Brian Flores, ranking tied for fourth last year with 49 sacks.

But Flores hasn’t had an interior rusher like this in Minnesota. Allen averaged 46 quarterback pressures annually, according to Pro Football Focus, over a six-year span. The last Vikings interior defender with at least 40 QB pressures in a season was Sheldon Richardson in 2018.

Allen, a 2017 first-round pick out of Alabama, is already familiar with three Vikings coaches — coach Kevin O’Connell, offensive coordinator Wes Phillips and tight ends coach Brian Angelichio — who spent time on Washington’s staff.

He joins an interior Vikings defensive line for next season that includes Harrison Phillips, Jalen Redmond and Levi Drake Rodriguez. Two starters from last season, defensive tackles Jonathan Bullard and Jerry Tillery, will be free to sign with other teams when free agency officially begins Wednesday afternoon.

Perhaps defensive tackle Javon Hargrave will be joining soon.

Hargrave, 32, is reportedly nearing a deal with the Vikings ahead of his expected release by the 49ers on Wednesday, according to NFL Media.

Hargrave played only three games last year because of a season-ending torn triceps muscle. But he had appeared in at least 15 games during each of his previous eight NFL seasons for the 49ers, Eagles and Steelers. He has been one of the NFL’s most disruptive interior pass rushers during that span.

Only seven NFL defensive tackles have more sacks than Hargrave’s 45.5 since he entered the league in 2016 as a third-round pick out of South Carolina State.

San Francisco reportedly plans to wait until the start of the 2025 league year on Wednesday to release Hargrave, who signed a four-year, $84 million deal with the 49ers in 2023, for salary cap purposes.

With Allen and Hargrave, the Vikings would be adding two proven disrupters whose previous teams moved on from them after injury-shortened seasons. Like Hargrave, Allen was durable before last year’s injuries, appearing in at least 15 games for six years in a row. He missed nine games last season because of a torn pectoral muscle.

The Vikings tied $850,000 of Allen’s annual compensation into per-game roster bonuses, meaning he’ll earn $50,000 for each game he’s active. It’s the second-highest per-game roster bonus among current Vikings contracts.

If Hargrave is signed after being released, the addition, like Allen’s, won’t count against the Vikings in the compensatory draft pick formula. The Vikings are projected to get as high as a 2026 third-round comp pick for quarterback Sam Darnold agreeing to a three-year, $100.5 million deal in Seattle.