MINNEAPOLIS -- Minnesota Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway has said all offseason he wants to return to the team that drafted him for one more year. On Thursday afternoon, it became official that Greenway will get his chance to go out the way he wanted.
The Vikings agreed to a one-year deal with the 33-year-old linebacker, who has played his entire career with the team after the Vikings selected him 17th overall in 2006.
Nobody is more excited than me to help lead this team one more time! Dream achieved, going out a Viking! #Skol pic.twitter.com/1VjI0lnKuZ
— Chad Greenway (@chadgreenway52) March 31, 2016
"Nobody is more excited than me to help lead this team one more time!" Greenway tweeted on Thursday afternoon. "Dream achieved, going out a Viking!"
In a text message to ESPN, Greenway said he was "happy with the deal," and added he "got what I was looking for. [The] Vikes were great through the whole process."
Greenway said at the Vikings Winterfest in February that he would likely make 2016 his final season if the Vikings re-signed him and gave him a chance to play in U.S. Bank Stadium (their $1.1 billion new home). He missed his rookie season after tearing his ACL, but upon his return, he went on to start 90 consecutive games from 2008-14, before three broken ribs and a broken wrist forced him out of the lineup.
He restructured his 2015 contract to return to the Vikings on a reduced salary, and started 12 of the Vikings' 16 games, playing weakside linebacker in the team's base defense and making his first-ever start at middle linebacker in a Nov. 15 win over the Oakland Raiders. Greenway's leadership turned him into a trusted mentor in the Vikings' locker room; he was named the Vikings' Community Man of the Year in 2011, 2014 and 2015, and earned the NFL Players Association's Byron "Whizzer" White Award in 2015 for his community service work in the Twin Cities and the Upper Midwest.
The Mt. Vernon, South Dakota native, who grew up on a hog farm and played nine-man football in high school, has the third-most tackles in Vikings history. Coach Mike Zimmer and general manager Rick Spielman had both said they wanted Greenway back, and even though the linebacker had received some interest from other teams, it never seemed likely he would play elsewhere. The Vikings signed former Bengals linebacker Emmanuel Lamur to a two-year deal earlier this month, and Zimmer said at the NFL owners' meetings that Lamur would likely play weak-side linebacker. Zimmer, though, said he expected Greenway could still fill a similar role to what he played for the Vikings in 2015.