Minnesota Vikings

Veteran receiver DeAndre Hopkins is looking for a new NFL team. He’s hoping to tap into an old connection.

Hopkins recently told TMZ that he’d like to reunite with quarterback Kyler Murray in Minnesota.

“Kyler . . . that’s my bro, man,” Hopkins said. “Kyler is like family. Whatever I can do for someone like that -- if Kyler needed me, if the Vikings need me, they know I’ll be there.”

The remark reconfirms the perception that Murray is the new starter in Minnesota (or, at a minimum, that it’s Murray’s job to lose).

The more pressing question for Hopkins is whether the Vikings envision a spot for him in the lineup. The depth chart is led by Justin Jefferson, obviously. Jordan Addison is the No. 2, as he approaches the last year of his first-round rookie deal. (The question of whether they’ll exercise his fifth-year option may not be the no-brainer it once seemed to be.) Jalen Nailor, mainly a slot receiver, left in free agency.

Hopkins has a specific and unique skill set. He displayed it during Saturday’s flag football event, boxing out an overmatched Team USA defender to make a one-handed catch of the undersized ball.

Hopkins turns 34 in June. He overlapped with Murray in Arizona from 2020 through 2022. He caught the Hail Murray touchdown pass amid a sea of Buffalo defenders, capping arguably the highlight of Murray’s career to date.

The challenge becomes setting aside Hopkins’s past achievements and assessing his expected contributions as of 2026. He had limited opportunities with the Ravens in 2025, catching 41 passes on 59 targets for 437 yards and four touchdowns.

Still, Hopkins could be a potent weapon in the red zone, giving Murray an option for jump balls in the back corner if/when the defense focuses on Jefferson.

A pair of longtime Vikings returned to the team’s facility on Friday to sign one-day retirement contracts.

Receiver Adam Thielen and fullback C.J. Ham are now officially Vikings for life.

Thielen, a Minnesota native who played at Minnesota State University in Mankato (where the Vikings used to conduct training camp), earned his spot on the team as an undrafted tryout player in 2013. He wasn’t even invited to the Scouting Combine.

By 2014, he had a roster spot. (That year, he blocked a punt against the Panthers and returned it for a touchdown.) By 2016, he had nearly 1,000 receiving yards. The following year, he made the Pro Bowl and landed on the All-Pro second team.

In 2018, he started the season with eight straight 100-yard receiving games, matching Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson’s record.

Thielen left for the Panthers in 2023 as a free agent. In 2025, the Panthers traded him back to the Vikings. He eventually asked for his release, so that he could sign with a contender. He finished his career with the Steelers.

Ham, also a Minnesota native, was undrafted in 2016. He played college football at Augustana, in South Dakota. Ham caught the eye of former Vikings assistant Kevin Stefanski at the University of Minnesota’s pro day workout.

“I’m putting the Gophers running backs through some individual drills,” Stefanski told Vikings.com, “and there’s one kid who’s just staring me right in the eyes, doing it exactly how it needs to be done, doing it with maximum effort. And I said, ‘Who’s that kid?'"

It got Ham an invitation to the Vikings’ rookie minicamp and, like Thielen, Ham earned his spot.

He spent 10 years with the Vikings. He arrived as a running back; in 2017, he moved to fullback at the urging of former Vikings running backs coach Kennedy Polamalu.

“I told him, ‘I’ve been blessed to coach guys who played 10 years or more,’ ” Polamalu told Vikings.com. “He looked at me and said, ’10 years?’ ‘Yep. But you’ve gotta promise me now, if I move you, you’ve gotta give me 10 years.’”

He did. At a time when so much attention will be paid to the names landing in round one of the various mock drafts, it’s important to remember two things.

Plenty of those guys won’t last. And some of the guys no one is talking about will.

Thielen and Ham are two clear examples of that.

Ryan Van Denmark will be off to Minnesota.

The Bills have declined to match the offer sheet Van Denmark signed with the Vikings as a restricted free agent, according to a report from NFL Media.

With Buffalo tendering Van Denmark at the original-round level, the club will not receive any compensation for the offensive lineman’s departure.

Van Denmark’s deal with Minnesota is reportedly for one year and worth $4.3 million. Had he played on the original-round tender with Buffalo, Van Denmark would have made $3.52 million in 2026.

Van Denmark appeared in 43 games with six starts for Buffalo over the last three seasons. He appeared in all 17 regular-season contests for the Bills in 2025, playing 28 percent of offensive snaps and 17 percent of special teams snaps.

It’s been more than four years since Brian Flores filed his landmark race discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and various teams. The case remains stuck at square one.

The six teams that are the subject of claims made by Flores, Steve Wilks, and Ray Horton — the Dolphins, Giants, Broncos, Texans, Cardinals, and Titans — continue to seek a stay of the proceedings, pending multiple different appeals. This week, the presiding judge declined to stay the litigation.

Currently, the Giants, Broncos, and Texans have a petition for appeal pending before the U.S. Supreme Court on the question of whether the claims made against them require mandatory arbitration. A ruling is expected within the next month or so. (The Supreme Court first has to accept the appeal before resolving the issue.)

The Dolphins, Cardinals, and Titans more recently had their efforts to force arbitration denied. That will inevitably be the subject of another petition for appeal to the Supreme Court, based on the broader conclusion that the NFL’s entire system of arbitration controlled by the NFL has been struck down.

Like most defendants to civil litigation, there’s value in slowing the process down as much as possible. Flores, Wilks, and Horton want to move the case along.

While, like all parties in civil cases, appeal rights can be exercised as to certain issues before the case has ended, there’s a point at which justice delayed becomes justice denied. It has been more than four years. At some point, it’s time to start addressing the merits of the case, and to stop spinning the wheels of the court system on the threshold question of where and how the case is going to be litigated.

As to the notion that the case would have moved faster if the plaintiffs had accepted the league’s arbitration procedures (even if the process is inherently rigged against them), consider this — the league’s designated arbitrator (according to the plaintiffs) did nothing with the claims for more than a year.

A defendant to a civil case can run, but it cannot hide. Unfortunately, the NFL and the six teams that have been sued have managed to run an ultramarathon in the effort to avoid having to answer the specific claims that Flores, Wilks, and Horton have made.

Common sense suggests that, if the NFL and the six teams had any real confidence in its arguments on the merits, they would eventually stand and fight instead.

Last week’s arrival of quarterback Kyler Murray said plenty about the top rung of Minnesota’s depth chart for 2026. Thursday’s return of quarterback Carson Wentz possibly says plenty about the second rung.

A year after the Vikings embarked on an offseason, training camp, and preseason with J.J. McCarthy, Sam Howell, and Brett Rypien, the Vikings have added not one but two players with significant starting experience who were, at one point, on track to become short-list franchise quarterbacks.

No one knows with any certainty how McCarthy will respond to Murray’s presence. It feels like the starting job is Murray’s to lose. McCarthy, however, will have to be able to take it from Murray.

The first question is whether McCarthy will embrace that fight, or whether he’ll tap out. As noted over the weekend, the Vikings had some degree of concern last year that McCarthy would ask to be traded if they had kept Sam Darnold or Daniel Jones (or if they had signed Aaron Rodgers). Although McCarthy has far less leverage after a largely lackluster showing in 2025, that doesn’t mean he’ll react well to the Vikings rolling out the purple carpet for a former No. 1 overall pick who seems to be on paper a far better option.

With Murray becoming the carrot for McCarthy, Wentz very well could be the stick. Coach Kevin O’Connell knows that, at all times, he needs to have multiple quarterbacks ready to go. If McCarthy lands on the bench behind Murray, will McCarthy remain fully committed to his craft? Or will he simply count the games until he gets a fresh start elsewhere?

Keeping Wentz for 2026 could be aimed at keeping McCarthy from checking out. It also could be part of the broader calculation to see whether the tenth overall pick in the 2024 draft will embrace his current circumstances and compete as hard as he can.

The Vikings supposedly still like Max Brosmer, his disastrous debut in Seattle notwithstanding. They likely won’t carry four quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. Cutting Brosmer would expose him to waivers, allowing another team to snatch him away from the Vikings before he could be added to the practice squad.

It’s possible, then, that one of the three veterans — Murray, McCarthy, Wentz — won’t be on the Week 1 roster.

Murray got a no-tag clause. He doesn’t have a no-trade clause. Wentz, too, becomes a possibility to be shipped to another team for a late-round pick, if the Vikings believe McCarthy has adjusted to being a backup.

Or maybe someone will make them an offer for McCarthy. If nothing else, it gives McCarthy’s head coach at Michigan a chance to put his money where his unbridled enthusiasm unknown to mankind is.

Regardless, the Vikings had seemed to be destined to roll with Murray, McCarthy, Brosmer, and a camp arm. Now, it’s more complicated. Wentz, who didn’t arrive last year until late August, went 2-3 in five starts. He played admirably, and he did a much better job of getting the ball to receiver Justin Jefferson.

At this point, everything is, or should be, on the table. And the questions about the final configuration of quarterbacks in Minnesota will begin to be answered when the time comes to show up and work.

McCarthy will be the wild card. He’s staring at a possible benching. He could slip all the way to No. 3. In theory, he ultimately could slide right out of Minnesota, with Murray, Wentz, and Brosmer being the three quarterbacks who eventually make the team.

Two days before the inaugural Fanatics Flag Football Classic, there’s been an injury replacement.

Fanatics has announced that Chargers safety Derwin James Jr. suffered a “minor injury” earlier in the week, before reporting to the event. He’ll be replaced by longtime Vikings safety Harrison Smith.

A first-round pick in 2012 and a 14-year veteran, the Vikings released Smith last week.

Smith was a six-time Pro Bowler. He landed on the All-Pro first team in 2017 and the All-Pro second team in 2018.

He joins the Wildcats team captained by Jayden Daniels and Joe Burrow in Saturday’s three-team flag football tournament. Earlier this month, the event was moved from Saudi Arabia to Los Angeles.

Well, that didn’t take long.

Only eight days after the Cardinals released Kyler Murray, the team has a new No. 1 on their roster.

Linebacker Mack Wilson announced in a video on social media that he is taking over the jersey number previously worn by Murray.

The No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 draft wore No. 1 during his seven seasons with the Cardinals.

It will be the fifth number worn by Wilson.

He wore No. 51 in three seasons with the Browns, No. 30 in his first season in New England and No. 3 in his second season there and No. 2 in the past two seasons with the Cardinals. The NFL relaxed its jersey number restrictions in 2023, which, among other things, allowed linebackers to wear single-digit numbers.

The Cardinals obviously had no problem giving away Murray’s number after he finished his time in Arizona ranked second in team history in completions (1,864), third in passing yards (19,498) and third in passing touchdowns (115). He did not win a playoff game, starting only one in his time with the team.

Murray is not currently listed with a jersey number on the Vikings’ roster.

Carson Wentz will be back with the Vikings in 2026.

Minnesota announced on Thursday that the club has agreed to a one-year deal with Wentz, keeping him in the quarterbacks room for for a second consecutive year.

Wentz will join recent free agent signee Kyler Murray and 2024 first-round pick J.J. McCarthy for the chance to compete with the Vikings.

Multiple reports note Wentz had options, as the Chiefs and Jets had shown interest in the veteran QB. But the former first-round pick elected to stick with Minnesota.

Wentz, 33, started five games for the Vikings last season in place of an injured J.J. McCarthy. Minnesota went 2-3 in those games, with Wentz also playing through a shoulder dislocation before eventually having season-ending surgery.

Wentz completed 65.1 percent of his passes for 1,216 yards with six touchdowns and five interceptions last year.

This will be the first time Wentz has played for the same team for consecutive seasons since his final year with Philadelphia in 2020. Since then, Wentz has played for the Colts, Commanders, Rams, Chiefs, and Vikings — starting at least one game for each.

The No. 2 overall pick of the 2016 draft, Wentz has appeared in 103 games with 99 starts in his career, going 49-49-1. He’s completed 62,8 percent of his career passes for 23,626 yards with 159 touchdowns and 72 interceptions.

The Vikings have signed Bills restricted free agent Ryan Van Demark to an offer sheet. The Bills have five days to match what KSTP reports is a one-year, $4.3 million deal.

The original-round tender on the former undrafted free agent was $3.52 million.

The Bills will not receive compensation if they decline to match Minnesota’s offer.

Van Demark, who turns 28 this month, played 154 snaps at right tackle and 43 at left tackle in 17 games last season, with four starts.

In three seasons, he saw action in 43 games with six starts.

In Minnesota, Van Demark would serve as a swing tackle behind left tackle Christian Darrisaw and right tackle Brian O’Neill.

The Vikings have agreed to terms with punter Johnny Hekker, the team announced Tuesday.

Hekker, 36, spent last season with the Titans, who signed Tommy Townsend last week.

He played in all 17 games and punted 78 times for a 46.8-yard average and a 40.3-yard net. Hekker had seven touchbacks and landed 22 punts inside the 20-yard line.

Ryan Wright punted for the Vikings last season, averaging 49.0 yards on 65 punts with a 45.4-yard net.

Hekker got his NFL start as an undrafted free agent with the Rams in 2012. He stayed with the team for 10 seasons and earned Pro Bowl nods following the 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons.

Hekker punted for Carolina from 2022-24.