Minnesota Vikings Cut Alex Boone

With all of the movement that we expected from the Minnesota Vikings on the offensive line from last season to this one, the one constant that we all had penciled in was that Alex Boone, last year’s big free agency acquisition, would be the starter at the left guard position.

Oops.

Numerous sources are reporting that the Vikings have cut Boone, which apparently means that the team will be going with Nick Easton at left guard and rookie Pat Elflein at center.

Boone signed a four-year contract with the Vikings in March of 2016, and was immediately installed as the starter at left guard. Boone played decently in 2016. . .well, compared to most of the rest of the line, in any case. . .but had some injury issues this preseason and did not look particularly impressive. In fact, the line play seemed to improve dramatically when the Vikings slid Easton over to left guard for a few games.

Boone had a cap hit of approximately $6.7 million for this season, and the Vikings will have to eat $3.4 million of that. It does, however, free up $3.3 million in cap space for the team for the rest of the season.

Frankly, even with the drop off we saw from Boone, I’m still pretty surprised that the Vikings made this move. However, this is what the Vikings saw in Training Camp and in practice, and they’d be the ones in the know on this one.

Boone is not subject to the waiver process, and can be signed immediately by any other team.

Once again, the Minnesota Vikings have released last year’s starter at left guard, Alex Boone. We are tracking all of the other cuts the team is making on our Roster Cut Tracker, but I highly doubt any of them will be as surprising as this one.