Vikings claim LB Ryan Connelly on waivers from New York Giants

UPDATE: In order to add Connelly to the roster, the team has announced that they have waived LB Hardy Nickerson. Original story follows.

The waiver claim period has come and gone in the National Football League, and the Minnesota Vikings have been awarded one player in the process.

Per numerous reports, the Vikings have claimed linebacker Ryan Connelly, who played for the New York Giants in 2019.

Connelly, a native of Eden Prairie, played his college football at Wisconsin and was drafted by the Giants in the fifth round of the 2019 NFL Draft. He played in four games for the Giants in 2019 before suffering an ACL tear that ended his season. In the four games he played, he got three starts and was pretty productive. He wound up with 20 tackles, a sack, and a pair of interceptions in just four games.

Our friends over at Big Blue View deemed Connelly as the “biggest surprise” of the cuts the Giants made on Saturday. If he’s recovered from his ACL issue, he could instantly boost the Vikings at linebacker with Ben Gedeon reverting to the regular season PUP list and being forced to miss at least the first six games of 2020.

The team has yet to announce the corresponding move to put Connelly on the 53-man roster. Once we receive that, we will do an update to this story with the move.