The Minnesota Vikings went into this offseason with a major need at cornerback.
All three of their 2024 starters, Byron Murphy Jr., Stephon Gilmore, and Shaq Griffin, were hitting free agency. They prioritized re-signing Murphy and also added Isaiah Rodgers to a modest two-year, $11 million contract, but Gilmore and Griffin are still unsigned.
It’s equally clear that they prioritized other positions over CB. The Vikings added three outside pieces to the offensive line: Will Fries, Ryan Kelly, and Donovan Jackson. They also added Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen to the defensive line and drafted Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins.
Minnesota also added a couple of depth pieces, Jeff Okudah and Tavierre Thomas, but neither has received a significant investment and has not been a full-time starter in the NFL. The team passed up multiple opportunities to take a CB in the draft, preferring to round out the OL with Jackson in the first round and take a chance on wide receiver Tai Felton in the third. Instead, the team seems content to roll into offseason activities with a room headed by Murphy, Rodgers, and third-year Mekhi Blackmon.
Limited experience and size
Byron Murphy is an excellent CB and deserves to be the No. 1 corner for the Vikings, but Isaiah Rodgers and Mekhi Blackmon are unproven.
I really liked what I saw from Rodgers when he played last year, but he only started three games and played fewer than 1,500 total snaps across the four seasons he’s played. (Rodgers missed the 2023 season serving a gambling suspension.) He’s never reached 50% of his team’s snaps in a single season. For context, Murphy played over 1,060 snaps last year, more than double Rodgers’ career high of 525.
Blackmon is even more inexperienced. He played 435 snaps in 2023, his rookie year. That count is almost half the 864 snaps Minnesota’s No. 2 CB, Stephon Gilmore, played last year. Blackmon also missed last season with a torn ACL he suffered in training camp. The injury meant that rather than building on his rookie year experience, he had to rehab and try to regain athleticism.
Size is another major concern I have with Minnesota’s current CB room. Murphy is listed at 5’11” and 190 lbs., with short, 30 3/8″ arms, and he’s the largest of the three CBs. Blackmon is also 5’11” but is only listed at 178 lbs., which is quite small for an NFL player. Rodgers is even smaller at 5’10” and 176 lbs. Second-year Dwight McGlothern is tall, at 6’2″, but rail thin at 185 lbs.
The team has to face WRs like Drake London, Tee Higgins, D.K. Metcalf, A.J. Brown, and George Pickens. They don’t have anyone who can line up against them. Gilmore is 6′ 0 1/2″, which is taller than Murphy, with 31″ arms, and has proven throughout his career that he has the size to match up with bigger opponents. Griffin, 5’11 3/4″ with 32 3/8″ arms, also had good size and great length. Losing their profiles will hurt Minnesota’s ability to match up with opposing wide receivers.
Competence at CB sets the floor
Vikings fans are familiar with position overhauls at corner. Moving on from Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes, and Mackensie Alexander led to a disastrous 2020 season, while adding Gilmore and Griffin to the 2024 Vikings stabilized the room.
In 2023, the Vikings were a middle-of-the-pack defense, finishing 14th in dropback EPA/play allowed, per rbsdm.com. They cratered at the end of the 2023 season, ranking 31st in Weeks 15 to 18, after Murphy got injured. Along with Akayleb Evans, Blackmon was one of the major contributors to the CB room over that stretch.
Add Gilmore and Griffin, along with some other players, and the Vikings skyrocketed to become a top-three defense in the NFL last year. They ended second in the league in dropback EPA/play allowed, behind only the Denver Broncos. In my opinion, moving from Evans and Blackmon to Gilmore and Griffin was a large part of the reason the team was able to make the jump to having an elite defense.
Brian Flores’ funky presentations and heavy blitzing confused teams early in 2023, but opponents had figured it out by the end of the season. In 2023, they basically ran Cover 3 (36% of the time), Cover 2 (a league-leading 28% of the time), or blitzed, running Cover 0 (a league-leading 11% of the time, double every other team besides the New England Patriots). They ran man coverage at the lowest rate in the league, 8% of the time.
The change in coverage versatility was the biggest reason the Vikings improved in 2024. Gilmore and Griffin, players with vast NFL experience, unlocked the team’s ability to run a larger variety of coverages. Per my charting, the team ran man coverage 22% of the time in 2024, Cover 2 27%, and Cover 3 23%. This balanced approach made it much more difficult for opponents to find the holes in Minnesota’s coverage and led to a better defense.
A team that was allergic to running man coverage with Murphy, Evans, and Blackmon suddenly ran it often with Murphy, Gilmore, and Griffin, particularly on third downs, and to much success. That’s not to say Gilmore and Griffin were perfect; they had their blemishes, and I graded the overall room as a B in 2024.
Still, I think the changeout and subsequent improvement highlight a flaw with Minnesota’s current CB plan. The Vikings replaced Blackmon with Griffin, and the defense massively improved because of that replacement. Shouldn’t that and the torn ACL be a major red flag?
Bring Gilmore back
Right now, the Vikings are making a big bet on Rodgers and Blackmon, an undersized, unproven pair of CBs. They also lack a backup plan. Jeff Okudah has a career 30.8 PFF grade, and Tavierre Thomas is a career backup and special-teamer.
It’s fine to bet on Rodgers and Blackmon becoming starters, but smart teams hedge their bets. The Vikings did this on the DL; signing Hargrave and Allen means the team is happy if one of the two signings hits, rather than banking on one to elevate the line.
I think the Vikings should do the same at the CB position, bringing back a veteran presence as insurance. It could be either Gilmore or Griffin, but I prefer Gilmore based on his level of play last season. Soon to be 35, Gilmore isn’t a long-term solution, but I think he’s still enough to stopgap the position, allowing for a more serious investment next offseason if Blackmon and/or Rodgers fail. Gilmore signed during training camp last year, and the team could quickly assimilate him back into the fold if they did so again this year, likely for less than the $7 million they paid him last year.
The team could try to make a splash to shore up the position in another way, whether that’s trying to add Jalen Ramsey from the Miami Dolphins, Jaire Alexander from the Green Bay Packers, or another free agent. If the Vikings go with an FA who wasn’t on the team last year, my preference would be Rasul Douglas. Still, I think Gilmore makes the most sense based on availability, price, and scheme knowledge.