Last season, Danielle Hunter and the Minnesota Vikings went 13-4 and finished first in the NFC North, but 2023 hasn’t been kind to them. They have a mediocre 3-4 record right now, and it looks like they have virtually no shot at winning their division again.

While starting quarterback Kirk Cousins is 35 years of age and in the final year of his contract, they do have some young players they can build around moving forward. While Hunter isn’t as young as wide receivers Justin Jefferson or Jordan Addison, he is young enough to be in the midst of arguably his best season yet.

So far in 2023, he has tallied 9.0 sacks and 12 tackles for loss, both of which lead the NFL, and those 9.0 sacks have given him 80.0 for his career, which has allowed him to ascend the Vikings’ career sacks list.

“Danielle Hunter has passed Everson Griffen for seventh on the Vikings’ all-time sack leaderboard,” wrote Will Ragatz of Sports Illustrated.

Hunter has made the Pro Bowl in three of the last four seasons, and yet he is one of multiple Minnesota players whose names have come up in trade rumors. If he were indeed to be traded, he could be a missing piece to the puzzle for a number of teams.

Griffen played all but one of his 12 pro seasons from 2010-2021 for the Vikings, and he was named to the Pro Bowl four times. He actually played several seasons with Danielle Hunter from 2015-2019 and again in 2021.

The Vikings are known in NFL history for their “Purple People Eaters” teams of the late 1960s and 1970s that reached the Super Bowl four times. Those defensive units included Carl Eller, who leads the franchise with 130.5 sacks, Jim Marshall, who is second with 128.0 sacks and Alan Page, who sits at fourth place with 108.5 sacks.

Minnesota also had some strong teams in the late 1990s, when defensive lineman John Randle helped keep opposing quarterbacks off-balance. In his 11 seasons with Minnesota, he accumulated 114.0 sacks, which is third on its all-time list.

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