The Minnesota Vikings entered the spring with a long list of offseason priorities. Chief among them was shoring up an inconsistent cornerback room. Their top three corners in 2023, Akayleb Evans, Mekhi Blackmon, and Byron Murphy, Jr., were all slated to return, but it was evident that the team needed reinforcements.
Evans was inconsistent in his first year as a starter. He looked reliable at the start of the season, but the Vikings benched him in two of the season’s final three weeks. According to Next Gen Stats, he allowed five touchdown passes and had one interception. One potential interception went through his hands and into a receiver’s for the game-sealing touchdown.
Murphy was Minnesota’s best corner but far from a Pro Football Focus (PFF) darling, receiving a 58 grade for the season. But he played both slot and traditional cornerback, and the defense struggled in the final three games of the season when he was out of the lineup. Although Blackmon splashed as a rookie, receiving a 71.8 grade on the season, he still misjudged crucial passes that ultimately led to losses against the Denver Broncos and Cincinnati Bengals.
These inconsistencies didn’t put any of the three cornerbacks on the roster bubble, but there wasn’t any depth behind them entering the offseason. NaJee Thompson was the only other corner who was a lock for a roster spot and was solely a special teams ace as a rookie. Andrew Booth, Jr., a second-round pick in the 2022 draft, was the only potential option outside of him. However, he only played 151 defensive snaps in 10 games and never looked like a starting NFL cornerback.
With this in mind, the Vikings used resources in free agency and the draft to bolster the cornerback room. They signed Shaquill Griffin, a seven-year vet who has almost played exclusively outside cornerback and made the Pro Bowl in 2019. In the fourth round, the Vikings selected Khyree Jackson, a 6’4” cornerback from Oregon. Coaches praised Jackson throughout OTAs and mini-camps. There was optimism that both players could provide depth and push for starting spots.
However, that changed on July 6 when Jackson tragically passed away in a car accident. A few weeks later, Blackmon tore his ACL during the team’s first day of training camp practice. Suddenly, the re-tooled cornerback room was thin again. With training camp underway, most premium free agents were off the market. But thanks to a healthy $26 million of cap space heading into July, they had money to spend some money to acquire quality replacements.
Their first move was to sign Jacobi Francis, a third-year corner who went undrafted in 2022. They then signed veterans Bobby McCain and Fabian Moreau. Their final move was trading Booth, who hadn’t shown improvement in camp, to the Dallas Cowboys for Nahshon Wright, a third-round pick in the 2021 draft.
Francis and Wright feel more like camp bodies. While they’re both young, Francis has only appeared in five games in two seasons. Wright only has three starts in his career, none coming in 2023.
The two veterans offer much more intrigue to the final 53-man roster. The Miami Dolphins drafted McCain in 2015, and he played the 2019 and 2020 seasons under Brian Flores, who was Miami’s head coach from 2019 to 2021. McCain came into the league as a cornerback but has spent most of his time at safety since 2019. However, in 2022, he spent 404 of his 970 snaps in the slot.
Moreau is entering his eighth season in the league. He made ten starts in 2023, is exclusively an outside cornerback, and has never graded higher than 65.7 for a season. However, he hasn’t graded lower than 52.7 since his rookie season.
Still, none of these signings were true game-changers. Their skill sets and accolades weren’t much more spectacular than what the Vikings had going into training camp. So Minnesota added one final piece this past week when they signed Stephon Gilmore to a one-year deal worth up to $10 million.
Although Gilmore turns 34 in September, he has played and started in 33 of 34 games the past two seasons. In those two seasons, he has finished with grades of 79.1 and 74.4, respectively, showing he can still be effective. Like McCain, he’s familiar with Flores because their time in Foxborough overlapped in 2017 and 2018 when Flores was the New England Patriots’ linebackers coach. They won a Super Bowl together in 2018, and Gilmore was a first-team All-Pro that year. One year later, Gilmore won Defensive Player Of the Year.
Like most cornerbacks on the roster, Gilmore has almost exclusively played outside cornerback. He is a lock for one of the starting outside spots, and Murphy is a lock for the slot corner position. That leaves an intriguing battle for the starting spot at the other cornerback position.
It’s been an unconventional road to get here, but the cornerback room isn’t the question mark it was when the 2023 season ended. That’s remarkable considering its state one month ago. The Vikings now have a combination of veterans and young players who may not be high-end contributors individually but can be a serviceable group.
