The Minnesota Vikings have agreed to terms with their first player in free agency, as they have agreed to terms with former Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Isaiah Rodgers to a two-year, $15 million contract. The news was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Vikings to sign S Bubba Bolden
The Vikings made a 90-man roster signing in safety Buba Bolden. He was a UDFA out of Miami in 2022 and has yet to play in an NFL regular season game. He spent the 2022 preseason with the Seattle Seahawks and 2023 with the Cleveland Browns. He played in the UFL with the San Antonio Brahmas and Birmingham Stallions last season.
Vikings agree to terms with CB Isaiah Rodgers
The first signing for the Vikings in free agency over the first three years has been a sign of how the team will handle the entire process.
2022: NT Harrison Phillips 2023: TE Josh Oliver 2024: EDGE Jonathan Greenard
The first two years of general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah saw them play things a little more conservatively. Some of that was due to the salary cap situation for the Vikings, as they were in a rough position with the salary cap until 2025.
This free agency, the Vikings have plenty of money to spend but used their first signing on Rodgers. It’s an interesting move for the Vikings and sends a couple of different signals on how Adofo-Mensah wants to build out the roster.
The first is that Rodgers is a smaller cornerback. He’s a similar player to Mekhi Blackmon in terms of frame, being listed at 5′-10″, 170 lbs. He also plays mostly on the outside with 368 snaps on the outside compared to just 29 in the box and 18 in the slot.
Bringing in another player who thrives on the outside with size limitations is interesting. Is this how the Vikings want to build out their cornerback room? They love Byron Murphy Jr. who also has some size limitations to his game.
The other potential signal has to do with constructing the room. Does Kwesi Adofo-Mensah want to spend big money on a cornerback when you can argue that it’s more of a weak link system? To me, that’s an intriguing element to this entire discussion.
Last year, the Vikings had a cornerback room that wasn’t elite talent-wise with two older players Stephon Gilmore and Shaquill Griffin to pair with Murphy. They played relatively well all season but struggled to play man coverage when it counted. The prevailing thought was that the Vikings would want to find higher-end cornerbacks to play more man coverage. Rodgers doesn’t fit that bill of a higher-end player, but he is a good depth piece.
Will that change over the next few days? It certainly could, but these signals are an interesting hypothesis.
