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Vikings UFA profile: DL Jonathan Bullard

Originally posted on FanNation Inside The Vikings
By Will Ragatz | Last updated 2/7/24

With the 2023 season in the books, Inside the Vikings is taking a look at all 22 of Minnesota's pending unrestricted free agents over the course of a few weeks. We're examining their past and speculating about their future, particularly the likelihood that they could be re-signed by the Vikings this offseason. We started from the least important (Hakeem Adeniji) and are working our way up to the big fish (Kirk Cousins).

Vikings UFA profile: DL Jonathan Bullard

Age: 30
2023 stats: 17 games, 14 starts, 44 tackles, 2 sacks, 1 FF, 46.4 PFF grade
2023 contract AAV: $1.32 million

In his eighth NFL season and his second with the Vikings, Jonathan Bullard saw the biggest role of his career in 2023. With Dalvin Tomlinson leaving in free agency and Dean Lowry getting hurt, Bullard finished second among Minnesota's defensive tackles with 643 snaps across 17 games. That blew past his previous career-high in defensive snaps (437 with the Bears in 2017).

Bullard was playing out of necessity, as the Vikings' other non-Harrison Phillips options were Lowry, Sheldon Day, Khyiris Tonga, and Jaquelin Roy. He clearly earned Brian Flores' trust as a solid run defender up front, but it's not like Flores had many other options. PFF credited Bullard with nine pressures and two sacks on 325 pass-rushing snaps (a 2.8 percent pressure rate). As a whole, the Vikings got almost zero pass rush from their DT group. Flores recognized that and focused on getting pressure via his edge rushers and blitzing at a league-high rate.

For what it's worth, PFF gave Bullard a 46.4 grade on the season, which ranked 61st out of the 67 DTs who played at least 500 snaps in 2023. Those grades are imperfect, but they demonstrate that the Vikings would be well-served to upgrade from Bullard in 2024. The bar isn't particularly high to do so, especially in the pass rush department.

Bullard is a former Bears third-round pick out of Florida who had stints with the Cardinals, Seahawks, and Falcons in between his three years in Chicago and the last two in Minnesota. His experience and run defending ability will land him on someone's 53-man roster next season. The Vikings could choose to bring him back for cheap, but they'd likely prefer to have him playing a smaller role behind a starter with more pass rush juice. They could also let him walk and give bigger roles to Lowry, Tonga, and Roy.

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