Vikings Reportedly Signing Back-Up Quarterback Case Keenum
Joe Johnson
|
The chase to limit needs before this month’s draft continues!
As I’ve talked about a lot, the Vikings (at least for awhile) had acclimated more needs than they could’ve possibly addressed in the draft (really the point before signing Latavius Murray), or any number of drafts. In the past two days, though, the Vikings have made a lot of strides to at least make their first pick come April 27th, less obvious. It was announced that the Vikings had signed three players during the Veteran combine (A corner/wide receiver, wide receiver and tight end) which helped and now they’ve gone a step further and added veteran back-up quarterback, Case Keenum.
Keenum has played for, most recently, the Los Angeles Rams. He stared nine games for them last season and was eventually benched for rookie Jared Goff. He also played for the Houston Texans, twice and was on the then St. Louis Rams as well. So, the two teams he’s played for since joining the league in 2012, have had him on for multiple stints, which speaks well to his professionalism and preparedness. Sure, he had a pretty iffy season last year but clearly was never meant to be the long term solution, either. He piled up 2,201 yards and a 9:11 touchdown to interception ratio across ten games, which is about as ‘Meh’ as you can get, but he should be an improvement over Shaun Hill (Who is a former teammate of his, as is Sam Bradford) who is close to retiring and also dying of natural causes.
This will allow the Vikings to spend one of it’s later round picks to focus on something other than a young, developmental prospect at the quarterback position and that could mean more than you may think. A lot of trade day trades, for players or picks, require late round picks and considering the general manager that the Vikings do have, that isn’t something that is necessarily far-fetched. So, this is a big move for the Vikings and allows Teddy to take his time to return from his injury as well without perhaps feeling the need to rush back should Bradford suffer a long-term injury at any point.