Vikings Can Now Sign the One That Got Away
Think back to 2022 when Kwesi Adofo-Mensah secured his first draft class as Vikings GM. That draft certainly didn’t age well at all, with Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth Jr. not even making it to year three with the franchise, and Ed Ingram and Brian Asamoah failed to reach year four.
Vikings Can Now Sign the One That Got Away
Only Ty Chandler and Jalen Nailor remain. Unless the Vikings re-sign one departed player and he would actually be a decent fit.
With his final pick in that draft, Adofo-Mensah added tight end Nick Muse out of South Carolina. The Eagles released him on Monday, and guess what, the Vikings could use another tight end.
Johnny Mundt left the tight end trio of him, T.J. Hockenson, and Josh Oliver in free agency, perhaps hoping for a promotion or a better paycheck in Jacksonville. The Vikings then selected Gavin Bartholomew in April’s draft, but the sixth-rounder out of Pittsburgh hasn’t practiced in months because of a back injury. He won’t be TE3 anytime soon.
After the draft, Adofo-Mensah acquired undrafted players Ben Yurosek and Bryson Nesbit. The preseason confirmed the suspicion that Nesbit is a decent receiver but can’t block, and that Yurosek can block but is limited in the passing game.
After three years of Mundt, who was at least serviceable at either, the Vikings might want to find more balance. Veterans Nick Vannett and Giovanni Ricci are also in the mix.
Back to Muse. With Philadelphia waiving him, entering his fourth season, he’ll have to go through waivers first. If he’s unclaimed, he can then pick his next team, and if his old friends from the Twin Cities call and offer him the TE3 gig, which would be a promotion after years on the practice squad or as the fourth guy on the roster, he’d probably take it.
In his rookie season, Muse appeared in ten games for the Vikings, the most of any season. He didn’t catch a pass, let alone play an offensive snap, but he logged 108 plays on special teams in those ten contests. As a sophomore, Muse played in only two games, with two offensive and 29 special-teams snaps, and last year, he appeared in four matchups with 17 snaps on offense and 47 on special teams.
His only career catch was a 22-yarder just after Hockenson suffered his significant knee injury in 2023. After last year’s season, his practice squad contract expired, and he joined Philadelphia’s practice squad for the playoff run. Without ever suiting up for them, he’s now considered a Super Bowl champion. The Eagles kept him around until Monday.
Muse is the only departed player from the 2022 draft class the Vikings didn’t get rid of, but who left on his own terms. Now, the door for re-signing him is open for the first time since he left.
He has familiarity with the offense, and the Vikings clearly like him to some extent. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have kept him around for three years. Muse is not a world-beater by any means, but he has shown over the years that he can catch what’s thrown his way, at least in the preseason, and he can get the job done in the running game.
A reunion makes sense.
Editor’s Note: Information from PFF, Over The Cap, and Sports Reference helped with this article.