Vikings and safety Harrison Smith strike a deal for his 14th season

Harrison Smith has played 192 games for the Vikings, more than any other player to suit up for the team in the 21st century. He’s got a chance to become the first Vikings player with 200 games since the Ring of Honor member who helped draft him.

Smith will return for his 14th season with the Vikings after agreeing to a new deal with the team for the 2025 season. According to a source with knowledge of the situation, the 36-year-old safety will make $11 million, with a $10.25 million base salary and up to $750,000 in roster bonuses, and can earn another $3 million in incentives based on his statistics and the Vikings' success.

Coach Kevin O’Connell and defensive coordinator Brian Flores emphatically stated they hoped Smith would return for another year, but the safety’s status seemed uncertain in the emotional postmortem of the Vikings' wild-card playoff loss to the Rams. Smith fought back tears as he answered questions about his future and talked about his bond with younger players like safeties Josh Metellus and Camryn Bynum.

He decided to give it at least one more year in Minnesota, though, after taking some time to contemplate his future with his family this offseason, and agreed to a new deal on the first day of free agency. He was under contract for 2025, with a league minimum base salary of $1.255 million, but he would have had a $25 million base salary for 2026 become fully guaranteed if he were on the Vikings' roster by this weekend. The terms of the old deal, in other words, were a placeholder that would force both Smith and the Vikings to make a decision on his future early in the offseason. On Wednesday night, the two sides agreed to rip up those terms in favor of a new deal for 2025.

Smith’s return means he will extend a career in Minnesota that’s already made him certain to join the Vikings' Ring of Honor alongside former teammates Jared Allen and Kevin Williams, as well as Scott Studwell, the linebacker who became the Vikings' college scouting director after his career and scouted Smith before the Vikings took him 29th overall in 2012. Smith, who has played 192 regular-season games for the Vikings, needs 10 to surpass Studwell. If he plays all 17 in 2025, he’ll tie Carl Eller for the fourth-most in Vikings history.

He’ll also have another year as a marauder in Flores' defense, which reinvigorated Smith and drew him back to Minnesota on a reworked deal for the third time. In 2025, Smith intercepted three passes for the eighth time in his career and sacked Aaron Rodgers in London to become the seventh player in NFL history with at least 30 interceptions and 20 sacks.

The six-time Pro Bowler leads all active players with 37 interceptions and can continue to add to his Hall of Fame credentials in 2025. He’s played in only eight playoff games in his career, with his only trip to the NFC Championship Game coming in the Vikings' loss to the Eagles after the 2017 season.

In 2025, he’ll get at least one more chance to chase a Super Bowl, as part of a Vikings defense that added defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave, as well as cornerback Isaiah Rodgers, this week. Smith also brings some stability back to the Vikings' secondary after Bynum’s departure to Indianapolis, and he’ll have another year as one of the keys to the elaborate system of on-field checks the Vikings have used to frustrate quarterbacks under Flores.

Smith starred as a playmaking rookie on a Vikings team that made a surprising playoff run in 2012, while he played behind Allen and Williams as well as fixtures like Chad Greenway and Antoine Winfield.

Now, the iconoclastic, understated safety is married with two young children and has been in Minnesota four years longer than anyone else on the team. Only Smith and fullback C.J. Ham date back to the team’s days in its spartan Winter Park facility, before the Vikings moved from Eden Prairie to Eagan and opened the sprawling TCO Performance Center in 2018.

He’ll have at least one more year to extend a run that has few parallels in Vikings history. Most of the players with Smith’s longevity and production date back to the Bud Grant era; his name could reside alongside theirs in the team’s record books by the end of the 2025 season.