Among other issues they’ve had on defense so far this season, the Minnesota Vikings have had quite the carousel going at the cornerback position, and they added a couple more horses to that carousel on Monday.
The team has announced that they have claimed cornerback Chris Jones, who has played for both the Detroit Lions and the Arizona Cardinals. They have also elevated cornerback Mark Fields II to the active roster from the practice squad.
Jones signed with the Lions as an undrafted free agent in 2018, but was waived by the team as part of their final cuts. He then signed with the Cardinals, where he spent time on both their active roster and the practice squad. Earlier this year, the Lions poached him from the Cardinals’ practice squad, but waived him a couple of weeks later. In his career, he has played in 14 games, collecting 22 tackles and six passes defended.
Fields has been with the Vikings since the team acquired him in a trade with the Kansas City Chiefs after Training Camp in 2019. He has been elevated from the practice squad to the active roster by the Vikings twice already this season, meaning that if the team wanted him to appear in any more regular season games, they had to bring him up to the 53-man roster permanently.
The signings of Fields and Jones bring the Vikings’ roster back up to 53 players following the trade of Yannick Ngakoue and placing George Iloka on injured reserve.
The team adding two cornerbacks does not bode well for the team’s current situation at the position. By the end of their loss to Atlanta before the bye, the team’s only three healthy corners (Jeff Gladney, Cameron Dantzler, and Harrison Hand) were all rookies, as veterans Kris Boyd and Holton Hill were inactive for the game with injuries and Mike Hughes departed during the game after aggravating the neck injury that he’s been dealing with since last season.
We will see how the Vikings handle their cornerback situation with the addition of two new players to the roster at that position.