The Chip-on-Shoulder Players on Vikings Depth Chart
Leading into each summer for the Minnesota Vikings, we lift up the team’s “chip on shoulder” players, men who have something to prove more than most at training camp and in the preseason.
These players on the Vikings depth chart will have a chip on their shoulder in 2025, with the regular season about 3.5 months away.
Last year’s edition can be read here.
Here’s the batch for 2025, noted in alphabetical order.
Mekhi Blackmon (CB)
Some fans have forgotten Blackmon because he tore his ACL in July 2024 and the Vikings handed the CB keys to Stephon Gilmore and Shaquill Griffin.
However, Blackmon is back, and on paper, a CB2 job is wide open. Minnesota signed cornerback Isaiah Rodgers in March, but if Blackmon plays like he did in 2023, his rookie season, he has a decent chance to start for the 2025 Vikings.
He has a chip on his shoulder to bounce back from injury and win a starter’s job on a team somewhat lite at cornerback.
Ty Chandler (RB)
Chandler enters Year No. 4 in Minnesota — also known as the final season of his rookie contract. The Vikings traded with the San Francisco 49ers for running back Jordan Mason in March, a maneuver that demoted Chandler to RB3 after an early offseason spot at RB2 on the depth chart.
To avoid a summer roster cut and prove his worth in the pros, Chandler has a chip on his shoulder in 2025.
Theo Jackson (S)
For a few seasons, Jackson’s teammates have gushed about his behind-the-scenes performance, but Minnesota’s defense just didn’t have snaps available at safety, thanks to Harrison Smith, Camryn Bynum, and Josh Metellus.
Now, though, Bynum plays for the Indianapolis Colts, and rather than spending mucho dinero at safety in free agency, the Vikings simply promoted Jackson.
It’s a big test for the relatively unknown defensive back, and he’ll have a chip on his shoulder to establish himself for a national audience.
Most draft pundits expected Minnesota to draft a safety in Round 1 one month ago because they had no idea who the hell Jackson was.
Rondale Moore (WR)
Moore’s career was supposed to take off when the Arizona Cardinals spent a 2nd-Round pick on him four years ago. That didn’t really happen. Then, he hopped, skipped, and jumped to the Atlanta Falcons last offseason and promptly blew out his knee.
Six weeks after signing Moore, the Vikings drafted Maryland’s Tai Felton from Round 3, so Moore must now prove he deserves a roster spot this autumn.
Dallas Turner (OLB)
Some fans were ultra-critical of Turner as a rookie because he didn’t secure a full-time workload. His two EDGE teammates, Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel, reached the Pro Bowl.
The neat part about Turner? When defensive coordinator Brian Flores put him on the field, he consistently made splashy plays.
Now, Turner must prove he was worth the Round 1 pick in 2024 — the Vikings traded a fortune to get him — and he must do so while still having Greenard and Van Ginkel ahead of him on the depth chart.
PurplePTSD‘s Tom Rudelius recently noted on Turner, “League-wide, the average age of a linebacker in 2024 was 26.3, which puts it near the middle of the pack among all position groups. Dallas Turner is still just 22 years old and will turn 25 right around the time his 4-year rookie contract ends, so the Vikings still have plenty of time to get value from Turner in the prime of his career.”
“Given the price they paid for Turner, it feels a bit disappointing for the Vikings to sit him for most of his rookie contract. But ultimately, the hardest part of building a contending football team isn’t finding a way to pay your best players—it’s finding those players in the first place. If Turner someday becomes the dominant EDGE the Vikings want him to be, he’ll justify the resources spent to draft him and extend him, even if it requires a bit of patience.”
Turner’s physical prowess if off the charts, quite literally. He just needs playing time.
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