Vikings Trade Andrew Booth
The Andrew Booth era in Minnesota is over.
Vikings Trade Andrew Booth
The Minnesota Vikings reportedly traded Booth on Friday, just one day before the first preseason game of 2024.
The Athletic‘s Alec Lewis tweeted, “The Vikings have acquired CB Nahshon Wright via trade from the Cowboys in exchange for Andrew Booth, per sources. Trade is pending physicals.”
Many Vikings fans and this website speculated throughout the summer that Booth could be a trade candidate, and the team reached that exact verdict with the regular season four weeks away.
In Wright, the Vikings receive a former 3rd-Round pick (2021), also a man who hasn’t entirely lived up to his draft stock. He’s played 32 games in three seasons, starting just three, while tabulating a total of 269 defensive snaps. For perspective, Booth has played 256 defensive snaps in two seasons.
Here’s Wright’s Pro Football Focus resume to date:
- 2023: 60.1
- 2022: 51.8
- 2021: 45.7
And his passer-rating-against:
- 2023: 109.7
- 2022: 73.8
- 2021: 77.6
Booth had intermixed with third-teamers for most of training camp, which began about three weeks ago. Most thought he’d need a mighty preseason and then some to make the September roster, even though the Vikings’ cornerback depth has undergone tragedy and injuries in the last month. In the end, Booth was traded.
The new Cowboy actually played quite well when called upon, tallying a 68.6 Pro Football Focus score last season on about 100 coverage snaps. But he was not trending to start — or anything close to it — this season and may have been on the outside looking per roster trimdowns in 18 days.
For context, these are the Vikings’ cornerbacks with the Booth trade:
CB1: Byron Murphy
CB2: Shaquill Griffin
CB3: Akayleb Evans
CB4: Fabian Moreau
CB5: Nahshon Wright
CB6: A.J. Green III
CB7: Jacobi Francis
CB8: Duke Shelley
CB9: Jaylin Williams
CB10: Dwight McGlothern
CB11: NaJee Thompson (PUP)
Wright is big — 6’4″ and about 190 pounds — and if he makes the 53-man roster, adds a size element that the Vikings don’t have at cornerback. Leading up to the 2021 NFL Draft, he ran a 4.49 forty.
After the Booth deal, all eyes will turn to Booth’s draft mate, safety Lewis Cine, as general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah could swing a similar trade. Cine is buried on the current depth chart, so much so that most fans believe Cine will depart the team via waiver on August 27th when Minnesota shaves the roster from 91 players to 53.
Wright, 25, is about two years older than Booth.
The Cowboys also employ former Vikings linebackers Eric Kendricks and Nick Vigil, along with defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, who coached Minnesota from 2014 to 2021. Zimmer, though, has no previous affiliation with Booth.
Minnesota also employs cornerback Mekhi Blackmon, who was lost for the season to a torn ACL last month, and he is a cousin to Wright. Small world.
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.
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