Vikings trim roster down to 80 players

Another NFL cutdown deadline has come and gone, and the Minnesota Vikings have gotten their roster down to the league-mandated 80 players. They made four moves in order to make that happen.

The team has moved both linebacker Ryan Connelly and wide receiver Blake Proehl from the Active Physically Unable to Perform (PUP) List to the Reserve PUP List. That means that they no longer count against the 80-man roster. It also means that they are slated to miss the first four regular season games of the year while they recover from their respective ACL injuries.

In addition to those two moves, the team has waived cornerback Harrison Hand and tight end Shaun Beyer. Beyer was signed on the eve of Training Camp to fill the last spot on the 90-man roster and, to be honest, I don’t even remember his name being mentioned during either of the first two preseason games.

Hand is a bit of a surprise. He was a fifth-round pick of the Vikings in the 2020 NFL Draft after playing his college career at Baylor and Temple. He’s appeared in 23 games over the past two seasons for the Vikings with one start and had an interception in the team’s loss to New Orleans in 2020.

There’s one final cutdown remaining for the Vikings (and the rest of the NFL, I suppose). That will be one week from today, when teams will have to have their final 53-man rosters set by 3:00 PM Central time.