The Vikings will be without defensive backs coach Gerald Alexander for the next few weeks.
The team announced on Tuesday that Alexander has been suspended three weeks after pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated earlier this month. Alexander was arrested in April and his suspension, which began on July 24, will run through August 13.
“Following Gerald’s arrest earlier this spring, we remained in communication with the NFL while awaiting the outcome of the legal process,” the team said in a statement. “We take these situations seriously and believe this disciplinary action is appropriate.”
Alexander also released a statement through the team.
“I take full responsibility for the situation I put myself in and apologize for not meeting the mark,” Alexander said. “I know it’s unacceptable. I understand the suspension and am committed to learning from the matter and ensuring I come back a better version of myself.”
The Vikings hired Alexander this offseason. He worked on the same staff as Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores in Miami and Pittsburgh.
Vikings Clips
Running back Adrian Peterson played for seven NFL teams. He’ll always be remembered as a Viking.
On Monday, November 9, the Vikings will induct Peterson into their Ring of Honor.
Peterson, who won the NFL’s MVP award in 2012 with a near-record 2,097 rushing yards a season after suffering a torn ACL on Christmas Eve, ranks fifth on the all-time rushing list, with 14,918 yards. In ten years with the Vikings, he rushed for 11,747 yards.
Peterson’s career was marred in 2014, when he missed nearly all of the season on paid leave following felony child-abuse charges that resulted in a no-contest plea to misdemeanor reckless assault.
The following season, he led the league in rushing, with 1,485 yards.
In all, Peterson was a seven-time Pro Bowler for the Vikings. He was named offensive rookie of the year in 2007, and he was a four-time first-team All-Pro and a three-time second-team All-Pro.
He’ll become the 29th member of the Vikings’ Ring of Honor — and it’s just a matter of time before he enters the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The Vikings’ veterans are reporting to training camp today, and they’ve added two new veteran players.
Running back Jordan Mims and linebacker Jamal Adams have signed, the team announced.
The 30-year-old Adams’ signing was reported yesterday and became official today. Although he was one of the best safeties in the NFL early in his career with the Jets, Adams went into a steep decline after his blockbuster trade to the Seahawks, and he has never been the same player. But after switching to linebacker last year with the Raiders, he was effective enough to be active for all 17 games.
Mims has been in the league since he signed with the Bills as an undrafted rookie in 2023. He has spent time with the Saints, Titans and 49ers and hasn’t had a major impact in any of his stops, but he’ll compete for a roster spot at running back and on special teams.
The sixth overall pick in the 2017 draft will be joining his sixth team.
Jordan Schultz reported that Jamal Adams will be signing with the Vikings. Adams has since confirmed it, tweeting, “Year 10 #skol.”
Adams spent three years with the Jets, making it to two Pro Bowls and finishing 2018 as a second-team All-Pro and 2019 as a first-team All-Pro.
He was traded to the Seahawks in 2020, qualifying for a third Pro Bowl and finishing on the All-Pro second team. The next year, he signed a four-year, $70 million extension that made him the highest-paid safety in NFL history.
He stayed with the Seahawks through 2023. In 2024, he played for the Titans and Lions. After switching last year from safety to linebacker, Adams appeared in 17 games with four starts for the Raiders.
Adams has earned more than $71 million in his nine-year career.
It’s unclear whether he’ll be playing safety or linebacker in the Brian Flores defense. Given the flexibility and creativity of the scheme, he could play both.
The Vikings will open training camp when veterans report on Tuesday and they set the stage for the first day by announcing a handful of roster moves.
They announced that they have placed running back Kejon Owens on the non-football injury list. They also waived linebacker Keli Lawson and wide receiver Luke Wysong with Wysong carrying a non-football injury designation.
Owens signed with the Vikings after going undrafted in April. He ran 213 times for 1,334 yards and 11 touchdowns at FIU last season.
Lawson and Wysong also joined the Vikings as undrafted free agents this summer. The Vikings did not sign any players, so they will have room to add some bodies to the roster early in training camp.
Defensive end Everson Griffen hasn’t played in the NFL since the 2021 season, but he is not ready to throw in the towel on returning to the field.
Griffen’s second stint with the Vikings ended with him landing on the non-football illness while dealing with mental health issues and he missed time for similar reasons during the 2018 season as well. Griffen has had multiple arrests for driving under the influence since he last played in the league, but told Josina Anderson on The Exhibit Show that he’s been sober for a year and hopes to resume his career.
“My desire is to play again. . . . I know the things that I’ve done,” Griffen said. “I’ve burnt bridges, but I feel like that’s reparable. I’m willing to do anything to mend them. I’m saying clear, you don’t have to worry about me going back to using again.”
Griffen had 85.5 sacks during his career, but is 38 and the baggage of his time away from the game isn’t likely to fade away despite his sobriety. Griffen was charged with driving without an ignition interlock device after being stopped for speeding in Minnesota last week. Griffen was required to use the device, which blocks a car from starting unless the operator passes a breathalyzer test, after his previous legal problems.
Anderson asked Griffen about last week’s incident and he said that he’s no longer mandated to use the interlock as long as he passes a driving test, but failed it when he took it and “forgot” when he got in a car that did not have the device installed. That matter will make its way through the legal system, but the timing is unlikely to help Griffen convince NFL teams that he’s in position to overcome his age and layoff to become a productive player once again.
The Panthers lost outside linebacker Nic Scourton to a right knee injury in the team’s first training camp practice on Thursday. They didn’t waste any time bringing in a replacement on the roster.
The Panthers have agreed to terms with Cam Gill, Greg Auman of Fox Sports reports.
Gill, 28, played for the Panthers in 2024, totaling 22 tackles and four quarterback hits in 10 games.
Gill most recently played for the United Football League’s Louisville Kings. He recorded a league-best 11 sacks in 10 games and won the league’s 2026 Defensive Player of the Year.
He has played 50 regular-season games in his career with the Bucs and Panthers, totaling 51 tackles and 2.5 sacks.
On one hand, the NFL has tried to keep the Brian Flores lawsuit from getting to the merits of the claims because it’s the first page from the standard big-company-that-has-been-sued playbook. On the other hand, delaying the Flores case delays the best available path to a long-overdue reckoning.
ESPN, which is now partially owned by the NFL, has posted an article regarding the Rooney Rule. The headline declares that coaches believe the process is “rigged” against them. (It’s refreshing that ESPN has pursued an issue that the league would prefer be ignored; we’ll see whether and to what extent ESPN promotes the article through its endless car wash of shows.)
The starting point, and centerpiece, of the ESPN story is the runaround former Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham experienced after he had served as the league-mandated second minority interview for the Jaguars head-coaching job that went to Liam Coen in early 2025.
It was perceived to be yet another box-checking sham interview, aimed at allowing a team to comply with the Rooney Rule before hiring their preferred candidate.
Here’s the key paragraph from the ESPN article: “More than a dozen minority coaches declined to comment for this story, citing concerns that speaking candidly would jeopardize future opportunities. Among the 13 Black coaches who did speak -- some on the record but most anonymously -- the issue is clear: Even with hiring rules in place, they feel they cannot overcome ownership bias or the long-established relationships that shape hiring.”
Even Graham, who talked about his Jacksonville experience on the record to ESPN last year, declined to comment this time around.
Meanwhile, the NFL faces political pressure to abandon “DEI” efforts, now that the acronym has been morphed into a slur in sheep’s clothing. In Florida, attorney general James Uthmeier has been attacking the NFL over inclusion efforts. Nationally, the political winds continue to blow against the notion of placing diversity above merit. (As Jon Stewart observed earlier this week, “Meritocracy. It is a beautiful word. Where the fuck is it?”)
Back to Flores. Along with Ray Horton and Steve Wilks, Flores has fended off the NFL’s multi-year effort to vacuum their claims into the NFL’s secret, rigged, kangaroo court of arbitration. Now, after more than four years, it’s time to get down to talking to witnesses, gathering documents, and proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the NFL and many if not most of its teams make key hiring decisions with race being, consciously or not, a motivating factor.
It could get messy, but civil litigation is often uncivil. Owners and Commissioner Roger Goodell will be grilled under oath during pre-trial depositions. Some or all of the 25 minority coaches who won’t speak to ESPN reporters will receive a subpoena to testify under oath, which will not only protect them from retaliation but compel them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The Flores case becomes the only way to allow the facts to be developed, presented, and evaluated. A jury will determine, based on all of the evidence, whether Flores and his colleagues have shown that the NFL’s teams have a longstanding racial bias when it comes to hiring head coaches, offensive coordinators, and General Managers.
Many will say (because they always do) that businesses can hire whomever they choose. That opinion is grossly misinformed; federal law and the laws of many states prevent certain factors from being considered when hiring (and firing) decisions are made.
Real change can be effected in American society in one of three ways: the passage of legislation, the implementation of regulations, or the verdicts rendered through litigation.
That’s why large companies hate lawsuits. They can’t control a process that could force them to change their ways by attaching a massive financial consequence for their past failures to do so.
At some point, the NFL may realize that, win or lose, a public trial in open court will have significant negative consequences. The league and its teams could be tempted to make Flores and company a settlement offer they can’t refuse.
That’s the key. Will the league make an offer so large that the individuals won’t be able to reject it? Will they reject it anyway, realizing that taking their claims all the way to a verdict may be the only way to get the NFL and its teams to finally change their ways?
In 2026, the only practice receiver Stefon Diggs has experienced is legal.
Cut by the Patriots and still available, Diggs went through a criminal trial in May (the case never should have been pursued, based on the quality of the prosecution’s evidence presented in court). He also has multiple civil lawsuits to navigate.
Via TMZ, a man named Nigel King has sued Diggs for falsely claiming King stole a Ferrari — and for allegedly having Diggs’s friends attack him.
Also sued were Diggs’s brother, Darez, and three of their friends.
In July 2024, King arranged for Diggs’s Ferrari to be transported to Houston. The car was stolen. King claims he was never identified as a suspect in the theft.
King also contends that, in December 2024, Diggs began accusing King of stealing the car. King also claims that, a year later, Diggs’s friend punched King in the face.
Diggs, per the latest report as to a case that first surfaced in February 2026, requested that the case not proceed until the other defendants are properly served. The other defendants have since been served, which should set the stage for the litigation to unfold — likely slowly, as most civil lawsuits do.
In November 2025, Diggs sued a man named Christopher Griffith for falsely claiming Diggs had drugged and sexually assaulted him. Griffith filed a counterclaim, alleging that Diggs did indeed sexually assault him in 2023. Diggs has denied the accusation. That case has been unfolding with a stream of conflicting contentions and salacious details, which will make for a compelling trial if the case isn’t settled or dismissed.
Through it all, Diggs hopes to continue his NFL career. He recently claimed that there’s no WR2 in the NFL better than him. At least five unnamed teams reportedly have “checked in” on the player who had 1,013 receiving yards in his first season with the Patriots.
It was the seventh 1,000-yard season of the 32-year-old receiver’s career. Whether he’ll have a chance to do it an eighth time remains to be seen — but it was obvious last year that, even though his Ferrari was stolen, he still has gas in the tank.
When it comes to the NFL’s effort to send the Brian Flores case to arbitration, it’s apparently not over until the NFL says it’s over.
Regardless, the presiding judge has now made it abundantly clear that it’s over.
Despite a court ruling and an appeals court ruling that the claims brought by Brian Flores (against the Dolphins, Giants, Broncos, and Texans), Ray Horton (against the Titans), and Steve Wilks (against the Cardinals) must be decided in court, the NFL filed a motion to reconsider the ruling that slammed the door on arbitration.
On Wednesday, Judge Valerie Caproni denied the NFL’s latest motion.
The 15-page ruling begins with an expression of exasperation regarding the nearly four-and-a-half-year-old litigation: “This case continues to linger at the starting block. Or, to use a more fitting metaphor, this case continues to linger as the teams mill about in the players’ tunnels.”
Elsewhere in the written decision, there are some not-so-subtle indications of the judge’s impatience with the NFL’s efforts to keep fighting over a settled issue. From page 9: “Defendants can articulate no reason why these arguments were not raised in their response to Plaintiffs’ Motion for Reconsideration. . . . With sophisticated law firms, it is hard to fathom a plausible explanation.”
Also, from the same page: “Defendants opted for an iterative stream of arguments to buy themselves a few more months hanging out in the players’ tunnels. . . .”
Putting it another way, and as a judge said to the opposing lawyer in a case I was handling more than 20 years ago, “At some point, you stop arguing to the court and start arguing with the court.”
Judge Caproni’s order concludes like this: “Defendants’ seemingly-never-ending list of arguments why they should not have to litigate this case has run its course. Stepping back, while Defendants are free to spend endless attorneys’ fees to pursue the forum they think will be most advantageous to them, arguments about the superior efficiencies of arbitration ring hollow. . . . Instead of proceeding, discovery and motion practice for these three teams have been further delayed so this Court can deal with these teams’ attempt to take yet another run at how to avoid district court litigation and will, presumably, be delayed further while they pursue yet another appeal.”
It’s a mostly tactful way of saying to the NFL, “Enough. You’ve lost on this issue. Stop asking for arbitration and get to work on defending yourself in the litigation.”
Attorney Doug Wigdor issues a statement regarding the latest decision.
“At this point, the NFL and its teams have lost on this issue at the Second Circuit, were denied en banc review by the Second Circuit, were denied Supreme Court review and have now had the District Court twice confirm that the claims will not proceed in an NFL-controlled forum,” Wigdor said. “We hope the NFL and its teams will accept these rulings and proceed with the litigation.”
Presumably, that will happen. One of these days. Or, more accurately, one of these years.
