{"id":543891,"date":"2026-03-18T05:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/543891\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T05:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T05:37:08","slug":"minnesota-vikings-agree-to-terms-with-four-time-all-pro-punter-johnny-hekker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/543891\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Vikings agree to terms with four-time All-Pro punter Johnny Hekker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">EAGAN, Minn. (AP) \u2014 The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/minnesota-vikings\/312\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/minnesota-vikings\/312\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a> agreed to terms Tuesday on a contract with four-time All-Pro punter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/player\/johnny-hekker\/5399\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/player\/johnny-hekker\/5399\" target=\"_blank\">Johnny Hekker<\/a>, who will begin his 15th season in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 36-year-old Hekker spent last season with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/tennessee-titans\/307\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/tennessee-titans\/307\" target=\"_blank\">Tennessee Titans<\/a>. He played three years with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/carolina-panthers\/303\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/carolina-panthers\/303\" target=\"_blank\">Carolina Panthers<\/a> after spending his first 10 seasons with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/los-angeles-rams\/318\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/los-angeles-rams\/318\" 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=\"c-paragraph\">Hekker will be in line to replace <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/player\/ryan-wright\/869087\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/player\/ryan-wright\/869087\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan Wright<\/a>, who signed with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/new-orleans-saints\/311\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nfl\/team-page\/new-orleans-saints\/311\" target=\"_blank\">New Orleans Saints<\/a>. Hekker previously played for Vikings head coach Kevin O\u2019Connell and special teams coordinator Matt Daniels with the Rams. He has never missed a game in his NFL career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">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=\"c-paragraph\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NFL<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Associated Press<\/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":543892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-543891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}