As free-agent receiver Stefon Diggs waits for his next opportunity, he has an important piece of legal business to attend to.
His trial on felony strangulation and misdemeanor assault charges began on Monday.
As of this posting, the jury has been selected. Opening statements will happen next.
A live stream of the proceedings can be watched here, courtesy of the folks at NBC 10 in Boston.
The trial is expected to last a couple of days. The prosecution’s case largely hinges on the testimony of the alleged victim, who claims that Diggs assaulted and strangled her during an argument over an unpaid bill for her personal chef services.
The Patriots released Diggs in March, at the start of the new league year. He remains unsigned, with no team being linked to him yet.
Some teams could be waiting to see how the trial goes, since a conviction would undoubtedly result in a suspension under the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy.
Diggs, 32, has played for the Vikings, Bills, Texans, and Patriots. He had his seventh 1,000-yard season in 2025, despite having his 2024 season shortened by a torn ACL.
Vikings Clips
A dramatic belt-tightening by the Vikings from 2025 to 2026, with player spending plummeting from $350 million to $226 million, has sparked speculation that the team could be for sale. The topic made it to the pages of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, in a column from Charley Walters.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, team owners Mark and Zygi Wilf are not selling the team.
The column from Walters didn’t make a compelling case, frankly, that a sale could be in the offing. The simpler explanation is that the Vikings went all in last year from a cash standpoint, and that they now need to pull back from a cap standpoint.
The Wilfs purchased the team in 2005 from the late Red McCombs for $600 million. A sale would easily generate at least 10 times that amount.
Even if the Wilfs or any other current owner were contemplating cashing out, the league would likely encourage them to wait until after the Seahawks are sold. Rarely, if ever, are two teams for sale simultaneously. It’s better for the NFL to have only one team available at a time — and to not minimize the availability of the franchises. That preserves the rarity of the assets, pushing the number higher and higher.
Anyone with the money can buy a superyacht. There are only 32 NFL teams. It’s an exclusive club. And the Wilfs currently aren’t looking to leave it.
Last year, the Vikings wrote big checks in an effort to parlay a 14-3 season from 2024 into a Super Bowl appearance. This year, the team seems to be tightening the belt.
While part of the purple people purge was sparked by the cap consequences of last year’s spending spree, the most recent move — the decision to trade defensive end Jonathan Greenard in lieu of giving him a contract with a new-money average of $25 million — seemed strange. With the top of the new-money market now at $50 million annually, the Vikings couldn’t find a way to give Greenard half of that?
The situation is prompting speculation that a sale of the team could be coming. And it elevated from scattered chatter to a column from Charley Walters in the St. Paul Pioneer Press with a fairly blunt headline: “Are the Wilfs getting ready to sell the Vikings?”
The most obvious evidence to support that conclusion comes from the $124 million drop in cash spending from one year to the next, with a league-high $350 million in 2025 becoming $226 million in 2027, second lowest in the NFL.
The new Walters column picks through a variety of decisions the Vikings have made this offseason, but it includes no reporting to suggest that Zygi and Mark Wilf, who bought the team in 2005, are thinking about cashing out.
While the ever-inflating values of NFL franchises could tempt more than a few current owners to take $10 billion or more and run, there’s not enough there to justify a conclusion that this is anything other than a cap correction after the Vikings overplayed their hand in 2025, due primarily to the very bad decision(s) made about the most important position on the team.
Minnesota’s 2025 miscues cost G.M. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah his job. Waiting to search for his replacement until May surely wasn’t about saving four months of General Manager salary. It made sense to stay the course through free agency and the draft, especially if coach Kevin O’Connell emerged from 2025 with more juice in the organization.
If, as we believe, O’Connell was sounding the alarm about not having a veteran quarterback who could step in and play if J.J. McCarthy didn’t instantly fulfill his potential, KOC was proven right. Throw in the fact that he managed to get the team to turn the page immediately on a 26-0 embarrassment in Seattle with a 31-0 win over Washington and four more in a row after that to end the season (including a Christmas Day carving of the Lions’ playoff chances), O’Connell may have more sway than ever.
While no one will objectively conclude that the Minnesota roster screams out “Super Bowl contender” for 2026, the spending decisions don’t immediately point to a potential sale of the team. Still, perception is reality. With the hypothesis morphing into the beginnings of a theory, it could be time for the Wilfs to make the case publicly that they aren’t getting ready to pound a “For Sale” sign in the front yard.
Next year’s draft will happen in D.C. The location of the draft after that has yet to be determined.
Signs are pointing to the Twin Cities.
Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal reports that Minnesota is the “clear favorite” to host the 2028 draft.
Minnesota submitted a bid in March. The three-day process would center on U.S. Bank Stadium. Other events would happen in St. Paul, at the Mall of America, and in the Viking Lakes development around the team’s headquarters in Eagan.
The league’s events committee is due to meet next week regarding the 2028 draft. An ownership vote is expected at the next ownership meeting, on May 19 and 20 in Orlando.
The draft became a road show in 2015. As it continues to draw more and more people (regardless of any embellishment of the official numbers), it will become more and more attractive to numerous cities.
Since the draft left New York City, it has been hosted by Chicago (twice), Philadelphia, Dallas, Nashville, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Detroit, Green Bay, and Pittsburgh.
The Vikings signed defensive lineman Eric Johnson on Wednesday, the team announced.
Johnson, 27, spent last season with the Colts. He played 12 games, seeing action on 131 defensive snaps and 16 on special teams, and totaled six tackles.
He entered the league as a fifth-round pick of the Colts in 2022.
Johnson spent his first two seasons in Indianapolis before the Patriots claimed him off waivers out of the preseason in 2024. He played 11 games for New England.
Johnson rejoined the Colts in May 2025 when they claimed him off waivers from the Patriots.
He has appeared in 51 games, recording 41 tackles, including two for loss, with one sack, three quarterback hits and one fumble recovery.
After the Vikings made the belated decision to fire G.M. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah beyond the normal post-season pink-slip window, the Vikings did not embark on a search to hire a new General Manager.
They are now.
Owners Mark and Zygi Wilf have announced that the process has begun.
“With the conclusion of the 2026 NFL Draft, our search for the next general manager of the Minnesota Vikings is underway,” the Wilfs said in a statement. “This will be a thorough and deliberate process led by ownership, with support from a small internal advisory committee of senior leaders. We have also engaged respected firm TurnkeyZRG to assist in conducting a wide-ranging search that includes experienced football executives, emerging candidates, and individuals with diverse professional backgrounds.
“Our focus is to identify a decisive leader with a clear vision for team building, strong communication skills, and the ability to build alignment across an organization. Out of respect for all involved, we do not intend to publicly announce candidates and will provide further comment when the search is complete.”
Even if they won’t be publicly announcing candidates, any requests made for permission to speak to employees currently working for other teams inevitably will be leaked to the media.
Without a G.M., Vikings executive V.P. of football operations Rob Brzezinski led the draft and free agency process. He could potentially be a candidate to assume the G.M. role.
The overriding question is whether coach Kevin O’Connell will emerge from the process with greater influence over the roster. That will make the specific terms of the G.M. job critical — and it will potentially impact Minnesota’s ability to interview and hire candidates under contract with other teams.
Either way, the search has begun for a new General Manager in Minnesota. At a minimum, they’ll need someone who will work well with O’Connell and the coaching staff.
Alignment is the key. With it, a team has a chance. Without it, a team has no shot.
Receiver Jauan Jennings may be getting closer to finding a new team.
Jennings is visiting with the Vikings on Tuesday night and Wednesday, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Jennings, 28, had spent his entire career with the 49ers, with the club having selected him in the seventh round of the 2020 draft. Jennings played 75 games with 32 starts for San Francisco, including 55 receptions for 643 yards with nine touchdowns in 2025.
The Vikings did not select a receiver in this year’s draft over the weekend, which puts them in the market for more depth at the position.
Free agent running back Sincere McCormick has agreed to terms with the 49ers, his representation announced on social media.
The 49ers will have to make a roster move to open a spot for McCormick.
McCormick, 25, joins Jordan James, Kaelon Black and Isaac Guerendo on the depth chart behind Christian McCaffrey.
McCormick joined the 49ers’ practice squad after the Raiders waived him out of the preseason. The team cut him Nov. 18, and he was on the practice squads of the Cardinals, Broncos and Vikings to end the season.
He did not play a down in 2025.
McCormick’s only playing time came with the Raiders in 2024 when he played five games with two starts. He has totaled 45 touches for 212 yards.
The Vikings have officially locked up Jordan Addison for the 2027 season.
Minnesota announced on Monday that the club has exercised Addison’s fifth-year option, putting him under contract for another year.
Addison is now set to make $18 million guaranteed in the final year of his rookie deal.
The No. 23 overall pick of the 2023 draft, Addison has been productive in each of his three seasons, playing alongside one of the league’s top receivers in Justin Jefferson. In 2025, Addison caught 42 passes for 610 yards with three touchdowns in 14 games.
In all, Addison has tallied 175 receptions for 2,396 yards with 22 touchdowns. He’s also rushed for 103 yards with two TDs.
Addison is extension eligible, having completed his third season. The fifth-year option could be a starting point for negotiations on a long-term deal.
The Vikings did not draft any wide receivers this year, but they added four of them to their roster after the draft ended on Saturday.
The team announced the signing of 19 undrafted free agents to go with their nine draft picks and the group includes wideouts Dillon Bell, Shaleak Knotts, Marcus Sanders Jr., and Luke Wysong.
Bell had 119 catches over four seasons at Georgia while Knotts led Maryland with 717 receiving yards last season. Sanders had 50 catches for 797 yards at Georgia Southern in 2025 and Wysong wrapped up his college time at Arizona after playing four years at New Mexico.
The Vikings also signed North Carolina cornerback Marcus Allen, North Texas cornerback Da’Veawn Armstead, Notre Dame linebacker Jordan Botelho, Texas A&M cornerback Tyreek Chappell, South Carolina defensive lineman Monkell Goodwine, UCF linebacker Keli Lawson, Clemson offensive lineman Tristan Leigh, Dartmouth offensive lineman Delby Lemieux, FIU running back Kejon Owens, Virginia Tech offensive lineman Tomas Rimac, Temple linebacker Cam’Ron Stewart, James Madison safety Jacob Thomas, Georgia punter Brett Thorson, Colorado linebacker Arden Walker, and Texas A&M linebacker Scooby Williams.
