Vikings trade defensive tackle Harrison Phillips to the Jets as roster cutdown day nears

Behind three high-priced veterans, the Vikings had a group of young defensive linemen that Harrison Phillips said this summer would be able to help him stay healthy. Instead, that group made Phillips expendable.

The Vikings traded Phillips to the New York Jets on Wednesday in exchange for two sixth-round picks (in 2026 and 2027), according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Minnesota will also send a 2027 seventh-round pick to New York in the deal.

Phillips, 29, was scheduled to make $7.4 million this season; the Vikings will pick up half of his salary, while clearing $3.7 million of cap space for 2025. They’ll save $7.5 million in cap space for 2026.

He was General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah’s first big free agent pickup in 2022, and the team gave Phillips a new three-year deal at the start of the 2024 season. He’d become a captain and a team representative in the players’ union, and his community involvement made him the Vikings’ 2023 nominee for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year award. He started every game the past three seasons.

But after the Vikings gave big free-agent contracts to Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave this offseason, it set them up to enter the 2025 season with three defensive linemen counting for at least $6.4 million each against the cap this season.

On Tuesday, with the NFL’s roster cutdown day a week away, Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores praised the depth of team’s defensive line, saying, “I’m really proud of that group. I walked in there probably two weeks ago and said: ‘Each one of you guys can play. Don’t worry about the decisions we make. Just worry about getting better every day, putting it on tape.’ They’ve all done that.”

Jalen Redmond, last year’s standout former XFL defender who earned a roster spot and a role, is a virtual lock to make the initial 53-man roster next Tuesday. Redmond stepped into a package alongside Allen and Hargrave when Phillips wasn’t at practice on Wednesday.

Phillips saw the benefits of the depth in June, saying he imagined his snap counts would decline from his 2023 peak of 74%. That year, he became the first Vikings defensive tackle to play more than 70% of the team’s snaps since Kevin Williams in 2012. His snap count was a more reasonable 60% last season; he said the Vikings’ young players would help Allen, Hargrave and him.

“The three of us are older players,” Phillips said, “so I think anytime you can go out there and platoon in three to five to six-play roles, you can really attack with waves, and because of the depth we have, we’ll truly have waves we can throw.”