{"id":818454,"date":"2026-03-18T04:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/818454\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T04:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T04:19:15","slug":"vikings-agree-to-terms-with-veteran-punter-johnny-hekker-a-4-time-all-pro-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/818454\/","title":{"rendered":"Vikings agree to terms with veteran punter Johnny Hekker, a 4-time All-Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-d515c0f6=\"\">EAGAN, Minn. (AP) \u2014 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nfl\/minnesota-vikings-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a> agreed to terms Tuesday on a contract with four-time All-Pro punter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nfl\/johnny-hekker-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Johnny Hekker<\/a>, who will begin his 15th season in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nfl\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NFL<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-d515c0f6=\"\">The 36-year-old Hekker spent last season with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nfl\/tennessee-titans-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tennessee Titans<\/a>. He played three years with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nfl\/carolina-panthers-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carolina Panthers<\/a> after spending his first 10 seasons with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nfl\/los-angeles-rams-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Rams<\/a>. He started with the Rams franchise in St. Louis in 2012 as an undrafted free agent out of Oregon State.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-d515c0f6=\"\">Hekker will be in line to replace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nfl\/ryan-wright-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan Wright<\/a>, who signed with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nfl\/new-orleans-saints-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Orleans Saints<\/a>. Hekker previously played for Vikings head coach Kevin O&#8217;Connell and special teams coordinator Matt Daniels with the Rams. He has never missed a game in his NFL career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-d515c0f6=\"\">Hekker set what was then a league record in 2016 with a net average of 46 yards per attempt. His net average with the Titans in 2025 was 40.3, the third-lowest of his career, but his gross average matched a career high at 46.8 yards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-d515c0f6=\"\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-d515c0f6=\"\">AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NFL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EAGAN, Minn. (AP) \u2014 The Minnesota Vikings agreed to terms Tuesday on a contract with four-time All-Pro punter&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[260,7,10127,58,259,122,896,55,2572,2571,6,23891,397,394],"class_list":["post-818454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-saints","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-football","tag-johnny-hekker","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-national-football-league","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanssaints","tag-nfl","tag-ryan-wright","tag-saints","tag-tennessee-titans"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116248259194986769","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}