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Not Many Vikings Roster Spots Up For Grabs

By Warren Ludford
NFL: Minnesota Vikings-Training Camp Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

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:

  1. 4th safety.
  2. 6th wide-receiver
  3. 4th interior DL
  4. 2 DEs
  5. Another LB
  6. 6th CB
  7. 2 more OL
  8. 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
    (1057 votes)
  • 39%
    Jack Tocho
    (1238 votes)
  • 17%
    Antone Exum
    (530 votes)
  • 9%
    Tommy Armstrong
    (286 votes)
3111 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who wins the last WR spot?

This poll is closed

  • 22%
    Moritz Boehringer
    (718 votes)
  • 49%
    Rodney Adams
    (1557 votes)
  • 17%
    Stacy Coley
    (541 votes)
  • 9%
    Isaac Fruechte
    (302 votes)
  • 0%
    Caleb Jones
    (23 votes)
  • 0%
    RJ Shelton
    (16 votes)
3157 votes total Vote Now

Poll

Who wins the last DT spot?

This poll is closed

  • 4%
    Dylan Bradley
    (122 votes)
  • 38%
    Will Sutton
    (1123 votes)
  • 42%
    Tom Johnson
    (1253 votes)
  • 15%
    Shamar Stephen
    (448 votes)
2946 votes total Vote Now

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