Eric Kendricks restructures contract to give Vikings cap relief

We now know what the Minnesota Vikings had to do in order to create the cap space to sign first-round pick Garrett Bradbury, and the source. . .at least to me. . .is a mild surprise.

Numerous sources on social media are reporting, and the Vikings have confirmed, that linebacker Eric Kendricks has restructured his deal, giving the Vikings enough cap space to make the Bradbury signing official.

It comes as a bit of a surprise as Kendricks is in the second year of the big five-year, $50 million extension he signed last season. I wasn’t sure if the team would ask Kendricks (or Danielle Hunter or Stefon Diggs) to re-do their contracts this early on, but it appears that they asked Kendricks and he was okay with it.

The financial particulars of the restructure have not been made public yet, but I’m guessing we’ll see something before too long.

This also doesn’t necessarily preclude the Vikings eventually doing something with Kyle Rudolph, but he didn’t have anything to do with the Bradbury signing. If a conclusion to that issue is going to come before the next Vikings’ OTA, the team and Rudolph have about a week to work something out.

But, we now know how the Vikings found the room to get their first-round pick signed. The only draft choice the Vikings made that has not been signed yet is long snapper Austin Cutting, and that has almost exclusively to do with discussions about his service commitment. It’s not a financial issue, as Cutting’s cap figure wouldn’t make a dent in the “Top 51,” meaning it would have no effect on the team’s cap space.

UPDATE: Courtney Cronin of ESPN has some of the details of what’s happened with Kendricks’ contract.