Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports
The Minnesota Vikings have been building their secondary for the past four offseasons since selecting Harrison Smith in the first round of the 2012 NFL Draft and corner Josh Robinson in the third. The Vikings lost longtime cornerback Antoine Winfield after Smith’s promising rookie season, and since then they have drafted five defensive backs and head into training camp this year with 11 cornerbacks on the roster.
This number will shrink as the preseason wears on and teams are forced to trim their rosters. If last season is any indication of this coming year, the Vikings will be keeping six cornerbacks on their final 53-man roster. The shoo-ins to be on the roster include just Xavier Rhodes, Trae Waynes and Captain Munnerlyn. However, after signing a one-year $2.25 million deal with the Vikings this offseason, it’s almost a sure thing that former Cincinnati Bengal Terence Newman will make the roster as the team guaranteed him $750,000.
With the top four at the position nearly set in stone, this leaves two roster spots for the the following players to fight for: Josh Robinson, Marcus Sherels, Jabari Price, Jalil Carter, Shaun Prater, Justin Coleman and DeMarcus Van Dyke. Robinson is a player who improved dramatically under the coaching of Mike Zimmer last season, and with him being considered an elite athlete with a high ceiling, it’s likely the coaching staff will keep him around in hopes he reaches his full potential.
With one roster spot remaining at the cornerback position, the Vikings are already in great condition to get through an entire 16-game season barring any long-term injuries. Waynes should be starting by the end of the season, if he isn’t in Week 1, and with Munnerlyn restricted to the slot, his performance hopefully returns to his days in Carolina when he was a sneaky pass rusher who became a great all-around nickel corner in 2013.
This leaves the Vikings with Newman and Robinson to serve as solid fourth and fifth options on the outside with the slight possibility of either starting some games. Newman spent two years in Cincinnati with Zimmer, and in those two seasons he put together a combined 15.8 grade from Pro Football Focus, ranking him as a top-20 corner.
The Vikings find themselves in an unusual spot this year as cornerback historically has been the defenses weak link. They now have the opportunity to either go with just five cornerbacks and keep a project at a different position, or to keep a high-ceiling player like Jalil Carter, the former Canadian Football League player who the Vikings signed this offseason.
Carter is a 6-foot-1 corner who ran a 4.38 40-yard dash coming out of college but went undrafted because he declared as a wide receiver. Now after spending some time at corner, the Vikings were interested enough to bring him in. And with all the physical tools present, it makes sense to keep him as the sixth corner and hope it pays dividends in 2016 or even later this season.
Sherels seems to be one of the last guys to make the roster every year since being signed as an undrafted free agent in 2010. But if wide receiver Stefon Diggs proves to be a capable punt returner, there would be little reason to bring Sherels back for a fifth season, despite him being the hometown kid who’s never played for a team outside Minnesota.
Jabari Price and Shaun Prater were with the team last season, making it possible one of the two wins out the sixth spot from someone previously mentioned. The Vikings could go in plenty of directions with a solid five-man rotation at corner, and if they take a risk by keeping a sixth high-risk, high-reward player, their secondary could become one of the tops in the league. And that’s a necessity when playing in the pass-happy NFC North.
Nick Baker is a contributing writer for Rant Sports and you can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and add him to your network on Google.
