Jets Lock in Former Vikings Defender
Remember Kris Boyd?
Jets Lock in Former Vikings Defender
He’s a New York Jet.
Jets reporter Ethan Greenberg wrote this week, “The Jets have signed CB Kris Boyd, who has been a core special teams player for most of his career.”
Kris Boyd in NYJ
With the Boyd addition, New York will employ these cornerbacks in 2025, at least as of March 19th:
- Sauce Gardner
- Brandon Stephens
- Michael Carter II
- Jarius Monroe
- Jarrick Bernard-Converse
- Isaiah Oliver
- Tre Swilling
- Kris Boyd
Boyd will be on tap for special teams duty in New York and vie for a roster spot at training camp and the preseason.
Here’s his Pro Football Focus resume to date:
- 2024: 30.7
- 2023: 53.9
- 2022: 63.6
- 2021: 39.0
- 2020: 55.8
- 2019: 49.4
And Boyd’s NFL resume since 2019:
- Minnesota Vikings (2019–2022)
- Arizona Cardinals (2023)
- Houston Texans (2023–2024)
- New York Jets (2025–present)
The new Jet played 365 special teams snaps for the Texans last season, with 48 on defense.
Boyd’s Bio
The Vikings discovered Boyd in the 7th Round of the 2019 NFL Draft, and he’s played 81 games since. Boyd was utilized frequently in 2020 on defense — 343 defensive snaps — but aside from that campaign is mostly a special teams asset and a damn good one, at that. He survived the Vikings regime change from Rick Spielman and Mike Zimmer to Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell in 2022 — for a while.
For the Vikings in 2022, Boyd played just 37 defensive snaps, head coach Kevin O’Connell’s first year on the job, but was a keynote special teams performer. He was on the field 82% of the time for special teams.
That would be his final stint in purple, hitting the open market in 2023 and joining the Cardinals. The Cardinals released Boyd in early October, and it didn’t take long for the defender to latch on elsewhere. Boyd played in four Cardinals games that season, although all snaps occurred on special teams, Boyd’s niche. He didn’t see the field on defense in Arizona and further cemented his reputation for special teams.
Boyd is also known for volatility, even once making a bizarre claim about his former head coach, Mike Zimmer. Speaking to Patrick Peterson on the All Things Covered podcast in the summer of 2022, Boyd sarcastically declared about the Vikings coaching staff, “They would walk around with their assholes, like, tight.”
Boyd continued, “They would always be strict about everything. Like any time you messed up, it’s like the world ended.”
The Recent Boyd Gaffe
The 28-year-old made headlines in January — for all the wrong reasons. In the heat of the moment, he shoved his own coach in a playoff game.
That offence alone may explain why he’s no longer a member of the Texans’ roster.
Boyd, of course, later apologized: “I got the ball out. And as I’m getting up, I look at the screen, I see nothing but white, and they’re all pointing the Texans’ way. So I was like, oh yeah, we got the ball too. Turn over, and I was just turnt.”
“I love everybody here. I love my coaches. I never disrespect anybody. I apologized to everybody. Ross told me, ‘Don’t worry about that.'”
Jets’ Free Agency & Offseason to Date
New York has added several free agents within the last week, including Justin Fields (QB), Chukwuma Okorafor (OT), Josh Meyers (C), Brandon Stephens (CB), and Byron Cowart (iDL).
Notably, 2024 players like Davante Adams (WR, Los Angeles Rams), Haason Reddick (EDGE, Tampa Bay Buccaneers), D.J. Reed (CB, Detroit Lions), Javon Kinlaw (iDL, Washington Commanders), Morgan Moses (OT, New England Patriots), Aaron Rodgers (QB, Free Agency) have departed.
Boyd will turn 29 in September.
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 MIN 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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