The Minnesota Vikings don’t have much in the way of roster weakness heading into the upcoming season, though the secondary is one unit a critic could argue is incomplete.
Minnesota spent big to lock up Pro Bowl cornerback Byron Murphy Jr. in free agency, putting up $54 million over three years on the 27-year-old defender. However, the team’s other two starting corners from last season — Shaq Griffin and Stephon Gilmore — departed in free agency. Griffin has since joined the Seattle Seahawks, while Gilmore, a former NFL Defensive Player of the Year, remains unsigned.
Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores is high on cornerback Isaiah Rodgers as the team’s second outside DB opposite Murphy, though training camp and preseason game action will have significant bearing on if Rodgers wins the CB2 job and how confident the team is in Mekhi Blackmon as its third cornerback option.
Several analysts have mentioned Minnesota as a possible trade partner with the Miami Dolphins for seven-time Pro Bowler and three-time All-Pro corner Jalen Ramsey, as the two sides have each publicly acknowledged a desire to move on in 2025. Ramsey, who will play this season at 31 years old, recently inked a three-year extension worth more than $72 million in total and remains under contract for the next four seasons.
Still, even despite his price, Tyler Forness of A to Z Sports contended on Wednesday, June 25, that the Vikings could make a deal for Ramsey with relative ease.
“A trade for Ramsey is one that the Vikings could easily make happen,” Forness wrote. “The likely compensation that has been thrown out there is a mid-round pick, and the Vikings have a couple of them.”
Vikings Can Afford Jalen Ramsey Trade, but Deal Gets Expensive in 2026 and Beyond
Minnesota owns the rights to its third-round and fifth-round picks in 2026 and could bring in a couple more late Day-2 or early Day-3 selections via the league’s compensatory draft pick system.
The salary cap situation is a bit more complicated. The Vikings have more than $23.5 million in cap space at their disposal for the upcoming campaign as of Thursday, which is more than enough to absorb Ramsey’s cap hit this season.
However, Minnesota faces an approximately $60 million cap deficit in 2026, and Ramsey’s cap number will jump significantly year over year and raise the current $60 million figure by roughly 30%, based on Forness’s calculations.
There are ways the Vikings can get around all that, and Judd Zulgad of SKOR North acquiesced last week that CB2 or CB3 are spots Minnesota might consider upgrading via a trade after training camp gets underway, based on how the secondary looks as team work progresses.
He added, however, that the Vikings are less likely to make a blockbuster move — a category under which a deal for Ramsey would qualify — than they are to make a less expensive and less risky play, such as bringing Gilmore back on another one-year contract for his age-35 campaign.
Isaiah Rodgers Has Yet to Prove Himself as Starting-Caliber NFL Cornerback
By all accounts, the CB2 spot is Rodgers’ to lose, though he’s made catastrophic blunders before.
The former sixth-round pick of Indianapolis Colts lost the entire 2023 campaign to a suspension for violation of the NFL’s gambling policies. He played in 45 games for Indy across his first three years in the league, starting in just 10 of those, before sitting out a year.
Rodgers returned to the league as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles last season, playing in 15 regular-season contests and starting three of them. He has 14 pass breakups, three interceptions and two forced fumbles in 60 career appearances. Rodgers inked a two-year contract worth just over $11 million to join the Vikings this offseason.
Meanwhile, Blackmon suffered a torn ACL on the first day of training camp last year and missed the entire 2024 campaign. He played in 15 games and earned three starts during his rookie year, tallying eight pass breakups and three tackles for loss.
