Young Vikings Defender Will Be Traded or Cut
That didn’t take long.
Young Vikings Defender Will Be Traded or Cut
The Minnesota Vikings will reportedly waive or trade defensive tackle Jaquelin Roy, who joined the club via the 2023 NFL Draft 16 months ago.
NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero tweeted Tuesday, “The Vikings plan to move on from NT Jaquelin Roy, a fifth-round pick last year, per source. He’ll be traded or waived by today’s deadline.”
Minnesota, like 31 other NFL teams, has until 3:00 p.m. Tuesday to shave its roster to 53 players, and Roy will evidently be on the outside looking in.
As for a trade, the Vikings won’t fetch much of anything. At the most, general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah might receive a conditional — also known as throwaway — 7th-Round pick for Roy’s services. A much more realistic outcome is a roster waiver later Tuesday.
Roy played 31 games at LSU, tabulating 97 total tackles, 4 sacks, and 3 fumble recoveries. He joined the Tigers the year after Justin Jefferson left for the Vikings in the 2020 NFL Draft. Last summer, Roy competed for playing time in the regular season and landed a 53-man roster spot. Some late-rounders spend their first season on a practice squad, but Roy avoided such fate and appeared in 12 games as a rookie. He played 96 defensive snaps and tabulated 8 tackles. Roy also officially started one game.
With Roy on the way out, these are the remaining defensive tackles vying for regular season roster spots:
- Harrison Phillips
- Jerry Tillery
- Jonathan Bullard
- James Lynch
- Jonah Williams
- Levi Drake Rodriguez
- Jalen Redmond
- Taki Taimani
The Vikings will keep between four and seven players from the group, and earlier this week, our site officially predicted roster spots for Phillips, Tillery, Bullard, Williams, Drake Rodriguez, and Taimani.
Roy’s exit paves the way for another unsung youngster to make the roster — like Drake Rodriguez or Taimani. Stay tuned.
Minnesota has found magnificent luck with LSU alumni in the past, including Justin Jefferson, Roy Winston, Henry Thomas, and Danielle Hunter. Roy didn’t quite pan out like the rest.
The Vikings’ defense ranked 11th per DVOA in 2023, a 13-spot improvement from 2022 when the group checked in at No. 24 per the same metric. In the last five months, in addition to retaining the uber-aggressive Brian Flores as defensive coordinator, Minnesota added new defensive personnel: Jonathan Greenard, Andrew Van Ginkel, Blake Cashman, Jerry Tillery, Shaquill Griffin, and 1st-Round rookie Dallas Turner. There’s a decent chance that the Vikings will morph into a defense-first enterprise.
Roy will turn 24 in October.
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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