Waived Vikings 2025 Draft Pick Quickly Finds New Team
The Minnesota Vikings have had a bad reputation surrounding their drafts in recent years.
From names like Kellen Mond to Lewis Cine and Mekhi Blackmon, there have been more draft picks that haven’t panned out than otherwise. The trend of parting ways with draft picks continued on Thursday when the Vikings decided to waive LB Kobe King, who they selected in the sixth round of the 2025 NFL Draft.
On Friday, the linebacker landed with a brand new team.
Vikings 2025 Draft Pick Finds New Team
King was awarded to the New York Jets through the waiver wire on Friday. The Jets made the announcement themselves, tweeting, “We’ve claimed LB Kobe King off waivers.”
A product out of Penn State, King had very little opportunity to make an impact for the Vikings as he was buried on the linebacker depth chart. Ultimately, he played just three snaps on Minnesota’s defense, and he was inactive for Week 7 against the Philadelphia Eagles.
King was waived ahead of Minnesota’s Thursday night game against the Los Angeles Chargers so that Aaron Jones, who had spent the past five weeks on injured reserve, could be activated for the game.
Of course, the Vikings likely were hoping that King would be able to make it through waivers and land back on the practice squad, but such is the danger of the waiver wire. You never know exactly what the 31 other NFL teams are going to want to do.
It’s been a tumultuous first year as the head coach of the Jets for Aaron Glenn, and at 0-7, New York is likely looking to try anything that sticks at this point, particularly at a linebacker position that has been banged up this year.
Quincy Williams, a former All-Pro back in 2023, has missed the past four games with a shoulder injury, and Cam Jones, who has been a depth piece for the Jets since signing as an undrafted free agent in 2023, could miss extended time because of a hip injury.
With the injuries and a horrendous start to the year, the Jets saw young talent available and pounced on it. We’ll see if King amounts to anything in New York, but he should at least get more of a chance to play than he did in Minnesota with the veteran depth the Vikings had in front of him.
As for the Vikings moving forward, parting ways with a sixth-round pick in and of itself isn’t exactly egregious as only a select handful of players end up actually garnering real playing time at that point in the draft.
However, it’s reasonable for fans to feel a bit more painful in this case considering the Vikings only made five draft selections to begin with in 2025. King made up 20% of Minnesota’s draft class, and after committing that draft selection to the linebacker, he is now gone less than six months later.
On top of that, another Vikings draft pick, TE Gavin Bartholomew, is yet to play this season as he has remained on the PUP list since late August due to a back injury. There is at least a chance that Bartholomew does not play at all in 2025, and if that were to be the case, with the release of King, 40% of the Vikings draft class will have contributed virtually nothing to the team during their rookie seasons.
It’s not a place teams want to be in consistently, but the Vikings have found themselves in these situations far too often recently.
Editor’s Note: Statistics for this article were found via Pro Football Focus.
You must be logged in to post a comment.