Vikings make handful of roster moves ahead of regular season finale with Regards to recent happenings in the Team
Prior to their regular season finale against the Detroit Lions, the Minnesota Vikings made what will likely be their last flurry of transactions for the season. Let’s take a look at those here.
The first thing the team did was place wide receiver Jalen Nailor on injured reserve. Nailor suffered a concussion in the victory over Las Vegas in Week 14 and hasn’t even been able to practice since then, which is a bit concerning to say the least. Hopefully he’ll finally get an opportunity to recover.
To take Nailor’s place on the 53-man roster, the Vikings signed wide receiver Lucky Jackson to the squad. Jackson has been elevated from the practice squad in each of the past two weeks, and now he gets a place on the 53-man roster for the regular season finale.
Finally, the Vikings called up both of the cornerbacks that they have on the practice squad, Jaylin Williams and JoeJuan Williams, up from the practice squad for Sunday’s game. With injuries to Byron Murphy and Mekhi Blackmon keeping both of them on the sidelines for this game, the team needed some depth at the cornerback spot and have gotten it from an internal source.
That does it for the Vikings’ roster moves for this Saturday, folks. If anything else happens between now and kickoff, we’ll have it for you here as soon as we can.
For all the things you can say about the Vikings turning to Nick Mullens at quarterback, at least he certainly knows where Justin Jefferson is. Jefferson had 141 yards the last time these two teams got together and is currently 118 yards away from eclipsing the 1,000-yard mark for the fourth straight year, despite missing seven games (and most of an eighth). I firmly believe that the Vikings are going to do what they can to get Jefferson over that mark on Sunday, and I think they’ll be successful.
The last time these two teams played, the Vikings completely abandoned the run. I don’t see them doing that this time around, and Chandler is going to be the primary beneficiary of that. Chandler’s also playing for his role on the team next year, and while I think the Vikings will be going with more of a pass-heavy look in this one, I don’t think they’ll ditch the run game to the extent they did the last time.
It’s something we haven’t talked about a whole lot, but there’s a very good chance that this could be Harrison Smith’s last game as a Viking. He’s been one of the best in the league at his position since he was a rookie, and he’s had a long and distinguished career as a member of the Vikings. If this is it for #22, we can go ahead and highlight him here in the hopes that he can go out with a solid performance.
