After allowing him to hit the free agent market and make some visits, the Vikings re-signed Heath Farwell last week to a three-year $7.75 million contract. While this move has gone largely unnoticed in a week where many teams have committed to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of player contracts, I contend that re-signing Farwell could be the best move the Vikings make all offseason.

In 2005 Farwell signed with the Vikings as an undrafted free agent out of San Diego State and has been a solid contributor ever since. Serving as a backup linebacker, Farwell has made a name for himself as one of the top special team players in the league. In 2006 and 2007 he was named the Vikings special teams MVP for his knack of finding the return man and bringing him down quickly. In last season’s pre-season opener, Farwell suffered a torn ACL and sat out the entire season.

The Vikings faced a lot of injuries in 2008. Their starting quarterback Gus Frerotte had a back injury, Adrian Peterson was consistently hobbled, Bernard Berrian and Sidney Rice both missed time, Madieu Williams missed the first half of the season, Jared Allen played through extreme pain, E.J. Henderson was placed on IR fairly early in the season, Artis Hicks missed significant time, Pat Williams missed the end of the season, and the list goes on. Even with some of the big names on that list, I would be willing to say that no injury had a more negative impact on the 2008 Vikings than that of Heath Farwell.

So how can a guy with 64 career tackles (52 solo) and no other registered stats be that important to a football team? Well, consider this, despite all the injuries listed above, the Vikings still managed to improve almost every major area of their game from the two seasons before on both sides of the ball. However, in the absence of Farwell, the special teams fell to pieces.

It was no secret that Vikings fans crossed their fingers every time Childress sent out the punt team in 2008, and for good reason. According to nfl.com the Vikings special teams gave up a whopping 14.9 yards per punt return and four touchdowns. Let’s compare that. In 2007 they gave up 10.2 yards per return and one touchdown. In 2006 it was 9.7 yards per return and one touchdown. In all, the 2008 Vikings gave up a record number of special teams touchdowns. All of these blunders were well documented by highlight reels, newspapers, and talk radio. One has to wonder if the special teams is really THAT much better with their two-time MVP on the field. I would say they are.

Farwell wanted to become a free agent to test the market and see if he could catch on with a team where he’d be more likely to have a chance to start at linebacker. You can’t really fault the guy for that. However, as for now anyways, Farwell is the primary backup for all three of the Vikings’ linebacker positions, so his first start could come more easily than he thinks. After all, as illustrated above… injuries happen.

So the Vikings have done a good job of locking Farwell onto the roster for the next three seasons, and I think it’ll pay dividends very soon. He’s a special teams stud that should help keep the Packers’ Will Blackmon from making guys wearing purple look like they should be wearing clown shoes and dunce caps instead. He’s a high motor guy that takes pride in what he does and will not allow himself to fail. He wants to better himself and wants to start. If he puts as much into starting as he has into special teams, then I think he’ll be quite successful and will play an even larger role for the Vikes very soon.

I’d bet the farm that the re-signing of Farwell means that Ben Leber will be working out just a little bit harder this offseason.