In the wake of Bernard Berrian being released by the Minnesota Vikings on Tuesday afternoon, the team has promoted wide receiver Stephen Burton to the active roster to take that spot. Burton was the Vikings' seventh-round pick in the 2011 NFL Draft out of West Texas A&M, and is considered a project. But, hey, if you're going to try to develop a project, the Vikings are in a pretty good situation to do it.
Burton is 6'1" and weighs around 225 pounds, and ran his 40-yard dash at the Combine this year in 4.53 seconds.
(Props to "nectur" for pointing this out in the FanShots earlier, by the way.)
Now, normally the promotion of a seventh-round pick to the practice squad isn't newsworthy, but I wanted to put it out there just for this little tidbit.
Burton's promotion means that, of the ten players that the Minnesota Vikings selected in the 2011 NFL Draft, nine of them are on the squad right now. The one exception to that is linebacker Ross Homan from THE. . .dramatic pause. . .OhioStateUniversity. Six of those nine rookies have seen game action thus far, with the exceptions being Burton, offensive lineman DeMarcus Love, and defensive end D'Aundre Reed.
(Unless Reed and/or Love was active at some point this season and I just missed it.)
The rebuilding project appears to already be underway, ladies and gentlemen. . .seven games later than it should have, quite frankly, but it looks like it's now in full swing.