Which Receivers will the Vikings Bring onto their 53-Man Roster?

With only one realistic receiver spot open on the roster Rick Spielman has a lot of options, actually six. The one open spot I’m referring to assumes a few things. First that Rick Spielman will keep the same number of receivers as last year, which was six, and with Zimmers love for defensive rotation and depth I believe that is a very fair assumption that the offensive skill position will not receive any additional roster spots . Then that the first five spots are filled which I believe they are. The actual order of the first five is not set in stone in my mind but the names are: Stefon Diggs, Adam Thielen, Jarius Wright, Laquon Treadwell and the newest arrival Michael Floyd. Now a few of these guys didn’t have the best years last year, however, like it or not they all will be on the team this year. I believe Treadwell and Wright will both actually have decent years in the third or fourth receiver spots, but even if you don’t their respective contracts make them a lock for roster spots (Unless the team wants to bring that dead weight onto their salary cap, which history has shown they typically don’t). Wright still has $1.6 million in dead cap contract money and Treadwell has $8.1 million respectively, so as this may be Wrights last year to prove his worth, Treadwell actually has a few more years to figure it out. Now I do believe that Treadwell will figure it out this year but realistically he doesn’t have to in order to make the roster.

Now on to the one open spot, the Vikings are bringing in six receivers to compete for that last spot which will probably be one of the last roster decisions made.

The six candidates are:

  1. Rodney Adams who was drafted in the fifth round out of South Florida, supposedly he has the skill set to possibly replace CP as our kick returner.
  2.  Moritz Boehringer was drafted by the vikings in the 2016 draft and spent last year on the practice squad, which I see a repeat of this year.
  3. Stacey Coley the seventh round draft pick from this years draft who will be battling with Adams hard in camp this year.
  4. Isaac Fruechte who has bounced between practice squads for the last two years and ending up on the active roster due to injuries on December 31 last year. I look at him being called up last December as the coaching staff telling us that they looked at him as our best reciever on the practice squad ahead of the aforementioned Moritz.
  5. Cayleb Jones was signed by Eagles in April of 2016 and subsequently cut before the season and then signed in December to the practice squad by the Vikings for depth.
  6. R.J. Shelton an undrafted rookie out of Michigan State who will probably end up on the practice squad as well.

    So it will be a very interesting camp for these six trying to get enough reps ahead of the established receivers to get noticed, but I think it will come down to the final cut for a few of them. I know my decision wont be made till the end of camp on these guys!

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