Are the Vikings on the verge of signing WR Dede Westbrook?

After all of the moves that the team has made this offseason, one of the few remaining question marks for the Minnesota Vikings appears to be the third wide receiver spot. Granted, it’s a spot that doesn’t receive a lot of attention, given that the Vikings used fewer three-wide receiver sets than any team in the league, but it’s still a spot that could use an upgrade.

It appears that they might be on the verge of doing just that.

Free agent wide receiver Dede Westbrook posted a picture on his Instagram Snapchat today of the stadium at the Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center, and captioned it with “almost that time again.”

I’m not one for reading tea leaves or anything like that, but that seems like a pretty solid indicator that he’s making his way to the Twin Cities.

Westbrook spent the first four seasons of his career with the Jacksonville Jaguars, who selected him in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL Draft out of Oklahoma. He’s coming off of a 2020 season where he played in just two games and caught only one pass before tearing his ACL in Week 7 and being lost for the season.

In the two seasons leading up to that, Westbrook started 19 of the 30 games he played for the Jaguars and caught 129 passes for 1,367 yards and eight touchdowns. He also has plenty of experience as a punt returner, another area where the Vikings could potentially use some help.

Right now, the competition for the third wide receiver spot for the Vikings is between incumbents Chad Beebe and Bisi Johnson, along with rookie Ihmir Smith-Marsette. Adding Westbrook to the mix, provided that he’s fully recovered from his knee injury, could give the unit a shot in the arm in those situations where they do put three wide receivers on the field.

If anything further develops on this front, we will make sure you know about it as soon as possible.