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On Monday, the word came out that the Buffalo Bills were going to be releasing Pro Bowl guard Richie Incognito. As Incognito is an offensive lineman with a pulse, he immediately began drawing interest from Minnesota Vikings fans around social media.
While the immediate inclination would be that the Vikings should absolutely be in pursuit of Incognito to fill their hole at guard, there are a couple of pretty solid reasons to hit the brakes on that idea.
First off, Incognito isn’t going to come cheap. The Vikings have about $15 million in cap space remaining, according to the folks from Over the Cap. In his three years with the Bills, Incognito’s average salary was $5.25 million. He’s up there in age, as he’ll turn 35 in a little over a month, but I wouldn’t expect him to take a huge discount to sign anywhere.
The other issue is that the Bills released Incognito from their “reserved/retired” list. Why was he on that list? Well, here’s what he told Vic Carucci when he made his initial retirement decision in April.
@68INCOGNITO just told me the following: "I'm, done. That's it. It's been a long career. Went to the doctor. My liver and kidneys are shutting down. The stress is killing me. It's just about doing what's right. I just want to be in the Hall of Fame." Full story to come.
— Vic Carucci (@viccarucci) April 10, 2018
Incognito told Carucci. . .and this is directly from the man himself. . .that his “liver and kidneys are shutting down.” So, with his comeback, does that mean that his liver and kidneys are now not shutting down anymore? I mean, I know that modern medicine is pretty awesome and everything, but that doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that you could reverse with some Motrin and a change of socks.
(Some of you are nodding your heads. You know what I’m talking about.)
There are plenty of other issues that we could talk about when it comes to Incognito, including his involvement in the Jonathan Martin situation with the Dolphins a few years back. But I’m not sure if the Vikings should be taking a flier on a 35-year old offensive lineman that retired just a month ago because he thought his body was shutting down.
What do you think? Should the Vikings be seriously pursuing Richie Incognito?