Minnesota Vikings Release Safety Taylor Mays

Back on 25 March, the Minnesota Vikings signed safety/linebacker Taylor Mays to a one-year deal.

For Mays' sake, I hope that he was renting in the Twin Cities rather than buying.

In a mild surprise, the Vikings announced prior to the start of this week's mini-camp that they have released Mays. This frees up a space on the 90-man roster, and it's unknown at this point if the Vikings have their eye on anyone else to fill that spot.

The financial ramifications of Mays' release are minimal. His one-year deal only had $25,000 of guaranteed money in it, so the Vikings won't take a significant cap hit for letting him go.

Mays was part of Mike Zimmer's defense in Cincinnati for a couple of seasons, and mostly made his mark with the Bengals on special teams. The thought process was that he was going to get the opportunity to compete for playing time at safety or, possibly, at the linebacker position, as well as continuing in a special teams role. However, with this morning's announcement, he won't be competing for playing time in any capacity for the Vikings.

We'll be efforting to bring you more news from the Vikings' mini-camp as it becomes available to us.