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As we continue through OTAs this week, taking a look at the Vikings roster, and all the players that are locks or near-locks to make the final roster, there aren’t many spots left up for grabs. Here’s a breakdown.
Roster Locks
These players are all but locked-in to the Vikings roster at this point:
QB: Sam Bradford, Case Keenum.
RB: Dalvin Cook, Latavius Murray, Jerick McKinnon
WR: Adam Thielen, Stefon Diggs, Laquon Treadwell, Jarius Wright, Michael Floyd
OL: Riley Reiff, Alex Boone, Pat Elflein, Joe Berger, Mike Remmers
TE: Kyle Rudolph
DL: Everson Griffen, Datone Jones, Linval Joseph, Danielle Hunter, Brian Robison
LBs: Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks
CBs: Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes, Terence Newman, MacKenzie Alexander
Ss: Harrison Smith, Andrew Sendejo
STs: Kai Forbath, Kevin McDermott
That’s a total of 31 players on the 53-man roster. Then add the ‘near-locks’:
TE: Bucky Hodges
LBs: Kentrell Brothers, Edmond Robinson
Ss: Jayron Kearse
DL: Jaleel Johnson
ST/PR/CB: Marcus Sherels
P: Ryan Quigley ?
I put Quigley on there at least as a place-holder for the punter, to better reflect how many non-specialist spots are up for grabs. I added Brothers, Robinson, Sherels and Kearse to the near-locks as being both competitive at their position, and a key part of special teams.
Adding the locks and near-locks gives a total of 38 players on the 53-man roster.
What’s Up For Grabs?
That leaves 15 roster spots available. Of those, it would be surprising if the Vikings pulled the plug on guys like Danny Isidora, Ben Gedeon, Nick Easton, David Morgan, or Jeremiah Sirles- although any one of them could potentially find themselves out of a job by the end of August.
But if you add those players as most likely to make the roster, that leaves only 10 spots really up for grabs. Specifically, I’d break it down the available spots on the roster as follows:
- 4th safety.
- 6th wide-receiver
- 4th interior DL
- 2 DEs
- Another LB
- 6th CB
- 2 more OL
- One more offensive player
I’ll go out on a limb and predict:
- Jack Tocho may win the last safety spot;
- not sure who wins the last WR spot, but Adams may at least have the early lead;
- Will Sutton has the advantage on the last DT spot, but Dylan Bradley could surprise
- Ifeadi Odenigbo and Tashawn Bower for the DE spots, beating out Stephen Weatherly
- Elijah Lee for the last LB spot
- Jabari Price for the last CB spot
- TJ Clemmings and Rashod Hill for the last 2 OL spots
- The last ‘offensive player’ I left wide open as I suspect it may come down to a particular player’s prospects to make the practice squad, how many OL they choose to keep on roster (they could keep 1 more), or if a guy like CJ Ham is worth a roster spot in this offense, etc.
Now for some polls:
Poll
Who wins the last safety spot?
This poll is closed
-
33%
Anthony Harris
-
39%
Jack Tocho
-
17%
Antone Exum
-
9%
Tommy Armstrong
Poll
Who wins the last WR spot?
This poll is closed
-
22%
Moritz Boehringer
-
49%
Rodney Adams
-
17%
Stacy Coley
-
9%
Isaac Fruechte
-
0%
Caleb Jones
-
0%
RJ Shelton
Poll
Who wins the last DT spot?
This poll is closed
-
4%
Dylan Bradley
-
38%
Will Sutton
-
42%
Tom Johnson
-
15%
Shamar Stephen