After waiting five weeks from the time of his injury to let his MCL heal, Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson underwent successful ACL surgery this week. He’s now on the road to recovery, with Week 1 of the 2024 season a little more than seven months away. Because it often takes between 9-12 months to return from an ACL injury, Hockenson seems likely to miss at least a chunk of the regular season, if not more.
With their star’s timetable unclear, the Vikings may want to consider signing a free agent tight end who can help fill that receiving role in his absence. They have Josh Oliver, but he’s a blocking TE whose role didn’t change much when Hockenson went down. Maybe that’ll mean re-signing Johnny Mundt, who stepped up with a 10/120/1 receiving line in the last three games of the season. Another one-year option, proposed by Bleacher Report in a recent article on “bargain-bin free agents who can solve roster issues in 2024,” is the Browns’ Harrison Bryant.
Bryant would make the most sense for a team short on cap space and/or a team that only needs temporary help at the tight end position. The Minnesota Vikings are firmly in the latter category, as they have an elite tight end in T.J. Hockenson who suffered a torn ACL and MCL in December. Adding Bryant would give Minnesota an insurance policy at the position early in the 2024 season.
A fourth-round pick in 2020, Bryant played between 400 and 600 snaps for Cleveland in each of the last four years. He has just 89 career catches for 791 yards, but the 6’5″ TE does have ten receiving touchdowns during that span. Bryant, who was drafted when Kwesi Adofo-Mensah was working in the Browns’ front office, could be a solid fill-in option for the Vikings on a cheap contract. He turns 26 in April.
There are also plenty of other cheap FA tight ends who could fill this role, including names like Colby Parkinson, Adam Trautman, Drew Sample, Irv Smith Jr., and Brycen Hopkins.
