Vikings officially decline Laquon Treadwell’s fifth-year option

Barring a completely and wholly unexpected development, it appears that the 2019 season will be the last one for wide receiver Laquon Treadwell in a Minnesota Vikings’ uniform.

In a move that should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, the Vikings have officially declined to exercise the fifth-year option on Treadwell’s rookie contract, meaning that he will become an unrestricted free agent after this season.

To say that Treadwell has been disappointing since the Vikings made him the 23rd overall pick in the 2016 NFL Draft would be a massive understatement. After a rookie season that saw him catch just one pass, Treadwell’s production hasn’t exactly skyrocketed since then. He’s appeared in 40 games in his Minnesota career, and in those games he has recorded just 56 receptions for 517 yards and one touchdown.

Picking up Treadwell’s fifth-year option would have been an expensive proposition for the Vikings. The fifth-year option salary for wide receivers in Treadwell’s draft class would have given him a salary of around $10.2 million for 2020, and if Treadwell had become injured at any point during the season to the point where he couldn’t have passed a physical prior to the start of the new league year, the Vikings would have been on the hook for every penny of it.

There was really no reason to think that the Vikings were going to exercise Laquon Treadwell’s option, and on Wednesday they made it official that they would not.