Vikings Say Goodbye to 7 Players
Dustin Baker
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By “doing nothing,” the Minnesota Vikings said goodbye to seven players this week. Every NFL team has an opportunity to sign practice squad players to ‘futures’ contracts, which are like an offseason rendition of the practice squad.
These are the player the Vikings kept, signing six men to the aforementioned futures contracts:
- WR Trishton Jackson
- WR Blake Proehl
- TE Nick Muse
- C Josh Sokol
- OLB Benton Whitley
- CB Tay Gowan
Vikings Say Goodbye to 7 Players
And these are the players who the Vikings allowed to hit free agency:
- WR Dan Chisena
- LB Ryan Connelly
- OT Bobby Evans
- RB Bryant Koback
- CB Parry Nickerson
- TE James O’Shaughnessy
- QB Josh Rosen
None of those men are a significant loss for the Vikings, although the Josh Rosen exodus is noteworthy merely because the man was a 1st-Round draft pick in 2018. The Vikings signed Rosen in December when QB3 David Blough was pilfered from the practice squad by the Arizona Cardinals. Blough later started a couple of games in Arizona after injuries beset Kyler Murray and Colt McCoy while Rosen lived on the Vikings practice squad.
One Viking from the departure list has already found a new home. The Pittsburgh Steelers plucked Dan Chisena on Monday as Joe Rutter from TribLIVE.com tweeted Monday, “Steelers have signed former Penn State wide receiver Dan Chisena to a reserve/futures contract. Chisena spent the past three seasons with the Vikings organization and was on the team’s practice squad in 2022.”
With the Steelers, Chisena joins a WR room with Calvin Austin III, Ja’Marcus Bradley, Miles Boykin, Dez Fitzpatrick, Diontae Johnson, Anthony Miller, Gunner Olszewski, George Pickens, Steven Sims, and Cody White. Yes, a crowded house. Chisena will presumably compete for a special teams roster spot this summer.
The others — Connelly, Evans, Koback, Nickerson, and O’Shaughnessy — could realistically be back with the Vikings this summer for training camp, but that is a speculative crapshoot in January. Whether folks have realized it, the 2023 Vikings will look markedly different than the 2022 Vikings as general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah continues to execute his “competitive rebuild strategy.”
Chisena and Connelly were the longest-tenured Vikings on the “goodbye list,” both joining the Vikings in 2020 and staying attached to the depth chart in various capacities since.
NFL free agency begins on March 15th. Per OverTheCap.com, the Vikings have the league’s third-worst cap situation as of January 23rd. So, expect several other departures to accompany Monday’s list in the coming months.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. He hosts a podcast with Bryant McKinnie, which airs every Wednesday with Raun Sawh and Sal Spice. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ and The Doors (the band).
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.
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