Vikings sign veteran PK Greg Joseph

Towards the end of the season, Minnesota Vikings kicker Dan Bailey went through a stretch where he might not have hit water had he been kicking from the shoreline. On Tuesday, the Vikings signed someone that may prove to be some pretty solid competition for him.

Or his replacement. At this point, I don’t think the Vikings could lose either way.

The team has announced that they have signed veteran placekicker Greg Joseph, who had been on the practice squad of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

A native of South Africa, Joseph played his college ball at Florida Atlantic, and has had NFL stops in Miami, Cleveland, Carolina, Tennessee, and Tampa Bay before coming to Minnesota. He played in 14 games for Cleveland in 2018, connecting on 17-of-20 field goal attempts (with a long of 51) and 25-of-29 extra points. He was then cut by Cleveland and had a brief stop on the Carolina practice squad before signing with Tennessee.

With the Titans, Joseph was moved to the active roster for the team’s last two regular season games and all three of their playoff games. He was perfect in those five contests, going 18-for-18 on extra points and making his lone field goal attempt.

Whether the Vikings have designs on replacing Bailey or are simply attempting to light a fire under him (like they did when they made the ill-fated trade for Kaare Vedvik before the 2019 season), there’s going to be more than one kicker heading to camp for the Vikings this year, it would appear. Here’s hoping that, regardless of who gets the job, we won’t see the sort of meltdown that we saw from Bailey late in the 2020 season.