New Minnesota Vikings cornerback Stephon Gilmore on August 19th at TCO Performance Center in Eagan, Minnesota. The five-time Pro Bowler and one-time Super Bowl champion joined the Vikings' roster in August 2024.
The Minnesota Vikings will not use the 2024 season as flyover country, roll over and die, or “tank” just because their rookie quarterback was lost for the season.
The team is in it to win it, evidenced by the acquisition of cornerback Stephon Gilmore on Monday. The Vikings made the move official, and Gilmore reunited with his former coach, Brian Flores, the Vikings’ defensive coordinator.
Per quantity, Minnesota needed no more corners. It had plenty. However, the quality became suspect in the last six weeks after rookie defender Khyree Jackson tragically passed away in a Maryland car accident, and second-year defensive back Mekhi Blackmon tore his ACL.
Minnesota’s secondary has undergone massive overhaul since the start of July, adding defensive backs Duke Shelley, Fabian Moreau, Bobby McCain, Jacobi Francis, Nahshon Wright, and now Gilmore.
After McCarthy’s injury and even before it, some Vikings fans labeled the 2024 campaign as a springboard season, with the objective of reaching 2025 as the prime contendership year. Sam Darnold will quarterback the 2024 team. Most don’t believe he can lead the Vikings to the Promised Land. So, those folks glance at the depth chart, see Darnold at the top of the ticket, and don’t take 2024 very seriously.
However, that is a fan-driven sentiment. The Vikings’ players and coaches feel no such way, and the proof is in the pudding with Gilmore’s addition to the Flores defense. Why? Well, if the goal were to limp through 2024 just to arrive in 2025 with a healthy McCarthy and gobs of cap space, employing a non-Gilmore cornerback at the top of the depth chart would’ve done the trick.
Instead, in a direct contradiction to some theories suggesting 2024 has low stakes for the purple team, the Vikings very much intend to contend for the postseason now, balking at the wait-until-later approach.
Star Tribune’s Jim Souhan recently caught onto the approach, acknowledging any tankjob theories had left the building.
“‘Tanking’ is losing intentionally to improve draft position, and perhaps even land the top pick in the draft,” Souhan wrote this week. “It’s a difficult, painful and sometimes misguided approach in football, when the first pick in the draft could wind up underachieving or being injured, but it has occasionally worked, giving a team its franchise quarterback. The Vikings were never going to do that.”
Of course, the Vikings would never tank, and the evidence was palpable for two reasons: a) The Vikings never tank. They’ve never done it. b) The team signed Aaron Jones in March, a soon-to-be 30-year-old running back. The club is banking on him to fix the rushing attack that has floundered in back-to-back seasons. Adding an old running back is not the modus operandi of tanking teams.
While the team has a brutal schedule and lives in a hypercompetitive NFC North, Vikings fans should expect the club to fight valiantly for 18 weeks, even if the shiny new quarterback is on the shelf.
Minnesota wasn’t going to tank when the offseason began, wasn’t going to tank when Kirk Cousins left in free agency, wasn’t going to tank when McCarthy tore his meniscus, and sure as hell isn’t going to start now.
Gilmore in town is the irrefutable evidence. Thirty-three-year-olds with five Pro Bowls on their resumes don’t join tanking teams.
Dustin Baker is a political scientist who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2007. Subscribe to his daily YouTube Channel, VikesNow. The show features guests, analysis, and opinion on all things related to the purple team, with 4-7 episodes per week. His Vikings obsession dates back to 1996. Listed guilty pleasures: Peanut Butter Ice Cream, ‘The Sopranos,’ Basset Hounds, and The Doors (the band). He follows the NBA as closely as the NFL.
All statistics provided by Pro Football Reference / Stathead; all contractual information provided by OverTheCap.com.