Cornerback Isaiah Rodgers had a solid 2025 season for the Vikings. The team has acknowledged it with a tweak to his contract.
Via Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, the Vikings have converted $1.5 million in playing-time incentives for 2026 into a signing bonus.
To earn that payment, he would have been required to participate in at least 85 percent of the defensive snaps in 2026.
Rodgers signed a two-year, $11.045 million deal last year. He’s now due to make $5.94 million in 2026.
He can make another $250,000 if he qualifies for the Pro Bowl or $350,000 if he’s a second-team All-Pro or, if Rodgers becomes a first-team All-Pro, $500,000.
A sixth-round pick of the Colts in 2020, Rodgers has 77 regular-season appearances with 28 starts. Last year in Minnesota, he appeared in 17 games with 15 starts.
His best game came in Week 3 against the Bengals, when he returned an interception 87 yards for a touchdown and a fumble 66 yards for another touchdown.
Vikings Clips
The Packers have made a surprising roster move on Friday, but there’s more to it than it initially appears.
Green Bay has released receiver Bo Melton, but there’s more to it than it appears.
According to multiple reporters on the Packers beat, this is a roster management move, as Melton is expected to re-sign with the club’s practice squad and get elevated to the gameday roster for the Week 1 matchup against the Vikings.
Melton, a seventh-round pick in 2022, is now a vested veteran, which means he does not need to clear waivers to go to the practice squad.
In 16 games last season, Melton caught four passes for 107 yards with a touchdown. He also took five carries for 35 yards. He was on the field for 47 percent of special teams snaps and 10 percent of offensive snaps in games played.
The Jonathan Gannon-Kyler Murray partnership in Arizona ended with both men moving on after the 2025 season, but they’ll be back together for the first game of their new starts.
Gannon is now the Packers’ defensive coordinator, which means he’ll be charged with slowing Murray down in his debut as the Vikings’ starting quarterback. In a press conference this week, Gannon said that his experience coaching Murray left him aware of exactly what the defense has to be on guard for on Sunday.
“Really good player,” Gannon said, via WLUK. “He’s in a really good offense with some elite players. Obviously I’ve got nothing but love and respect for K-1. He’s competitive, he’s smart, he can make all the throws and he can beat you with his legs. So a bigtime challenge. As I know firsthand what this guy can do with his legs and he can train wreck the game real fast if you’re not coordinated the right way. We gotta contain him. We gotta be ready to plaster at all times ‘cause he has just kind of a way of getting out that pocket and extending plays. And then when he’s out that pocket is when I think he’s most dangerous.”
Murray was shut down after hurting his foot early in the 2025 season and that decision was tied to contractual matters as the Cardinals wanted to avoid being on the hook for any of his 2027 money. That didn’t help Gannon keep his job and shutting down his former quarterback would be the best way to start his new gig on the right foot.
The first pick in the 2019 draft is getting a fresh start on Sunday, with the team he grew up rooting for.
And Kyler Murray is ready for the moment.
“I’m excited,” Murray told reporters on Thursday. “Out of my, I don’t know how many years I played football, this has got to be right up there for the most anticipated. I can’t tell you how excited and ready I am to just be on the field again. Like I said, I haven’t played since October, so it’s been a long time for me.”
Will he be feeling any nerves in his debut as a Viking?
“Nerves? Honestly, I’ve been playing football my whole life,” Murray said. “If I didn’t have, you know, those anxious butterflies, those nerves, I feel like, you know, maybe I shouldn’t be doing it anymore, but I do believe, you know, I’m excited. I’m excited, and, you know, I can’t wait.”
He’ll also be a captain in his first season with the Vikings.
“It means a lot,” Murray said. “It means the world, actually. I mean, for me to be here, a new guy, and the guys, you know, put their faith and trust in me. It’s emotional, but like I said, it means a lot. I’m appreciative, and I take great pride and honor to wear that ‘C’ on my chest.”
The Vikings get a big game right out of the gates, against the Packers at home. A win fueled by a strong performance from Murray will provide instant validation of the effort to sign him. A loss will lead to head scratching for a team that should be good enough, on paper, to get back to the postseason.
Vikings fans saluted Harrison Smith’s entire career when he walked off the field at the end of Week 18 last season, but thoughts that it was the final time the safety would be on the field were premature.
Smith was out of contract throughout the offseason and preseason, but remained in touch with head coach Kevin O’Connell and agreed to return for a 15th season a few days ago. While that came as a pleasant surprise to many in Minnesota, it was something that Smith had in mind for quite a while.
“I think I kind of knew it the whole time. I just didn’t know, exactly, the timing,” Smith said, via the team’s website.
Neither Smith nor O’Connell is ready to say that the safety will play against the Packers in Week 1. Smith has worked out with a return in mind, but acknowledged the big difference between that training and what he’ll be called to do on the field.
“I’m in good shape. I’ve been working out,” Smith said. “But there’s nothing like playing football. It’s just the reality of it. Heart rate, outside factors, thinking a lot while you’re moving. It’s hard to simulate that. I kind of do it the best I can. There’s something about being on the grass and thinking while you’re moving. You can feel a little stuck sometimes and just getting the fluidity back. That’s kind of what I’ve been able to do the last few years — be very fluid out there while I’m thinking.”
Smith wasn’t on the injury report for Wednesday, but further word on his status for Sunday will likely come closer to kickoff.
A pair of starting offensive linemen landed on the Packers’ first injury report ahead of Sunday’s game in Minnesota.
Right tackle Zach Bako-Bewele, left guard Aaron Banks, and left tackle Jordan Morgan were all limited participants in Wednesday’s practice due to knee injuries. Bako-Bewele said after practice, via multiple reporters, that he plans on playing against the Vikings.
The Packers had limited participants on the other side of the line as well. Defensive linemen Javon Hargrave (knee) and Devonte Wyatt (ankle) joined linebacker Barryn Sorrell (foot) in the category.
Defensive tackle Warren Brinson (calf) and linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper (Achilles) were the only Packers out of practice entirely.
J.J. McCarthy has fallen from the Vikings’ franchise quarterback of the future to a third-stringer.
Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell announced today that Carson Wentz will be the No. 2 quarterback in Sunday’s regular-season opener against the Packers. McCarthy is No. 3 on the depth chart.
O’Connell suggested that Wentz’s experience makes him the better backup right now, but insisted that the Vikings will continue to work on developing McCarthy.
“I’m looking at that right now as a week-to-week thing, and Carson has almost 100 career starts,” O’Connell said. “J.J. is still going to get a bunch of great work. . . . This gives us the best chance to win this Sunday.”
Kyler Murray was named the starter a month ago after winning a quarterback competition with McCarthy that never seemed like much of a competition. Now that McCarthy hasn’t even beaten out Wentz for the competition to be No. 2, it’s safe to say the Vikings are ready to move on from McCarthy, despite O’Connell’s insistence that McCarthy is still going to get great work. McCarthy’s four-year, $21.8 million rookie contract is guaranteed, so that’s the primary reason the Vikings are keeping him.
The Vikings took McCarthy with the 10th overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft and hoped he would be their quarterback for many years to come. Instead, he missed his entire rookie season with a knee injury and then did not play well when given the opportunity to start in 2025.
Now McCarthy is opening 2026 buried on the depth chart. It’s entirely possible that he has played his last game as a Viking.
Safety Harrison Smith is back with the Vikings, but it remains to be seen if he will be in their secondary against the Packers on Sunday.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell said at a Wednesday press conference that Smith remained in good shape while considering whether to return for the 2026 season, which joins his experience in the team’s defense as reasons to think it won’t take long for the 15-year vet to get up to speed. O’Connell said he doesn’t know if that will happen in time for the opener, however.
“Getting his cleats back underneath him. Don’t know quite yet where we’ll be at as far as his availability for this week’s game,” O’Connell said.
Smith agreed to return to the team over the weekend and O’Connell said he thinks it was a “pretty easy decision” to come back because of Smith’s confidence in what he can still do on the field. The next couple of days of practice should determine whether he’ll get to show it against Green Bay.
The Vikings added another veteran outside linebacker to their practice squad on Wednesday.
The team announced the signing of Jihad Ward. They also added Kyle Van Noy to the practice squad earlier this month.
Ward spent the 2024 season with the Vikings and moved on to start 12 games with the Titans last year. He had 31 tackles, five sacks and 22 quarterback hits for Tennessee.
Ward was a 2016 Raiders second-round pick and he has also played for the Colts, Ravens, Jaguars and Giants. He has 199 tackles, 24 sacks, three forced fumbles and five fumble recoveries over his entire career.
At the end of the preseason, the Vikings waived outside linebacker Kenny Dyson with an injury settlement. A week later, the Vikings attempted to sign Dyson to their practice squad. The league said no.
Dyson’s practice squad contract was disallowed because of a league rule that say players waived with an injury settlement can’t be re-signed by that team until the length of the injury settlement, plus three weeks.
In other words, if Dyson’s injury settlement (which has not been publicly revealed) was four weeks’ salary, that means the Vikings wouldn’t be allowed to bring him back until at least seven weeks into the season. Dyson is free to sign with another team before then, just not the Vikings.
Injury settlements can be beneficial to both the team and the player: For the team, reaching an injury settlement with the player prevents them from having to put him on injured reserve, so he can play for them later in the season once he’s healthy. For the player, accepting the settlement allows him to take that money but still potentially play later in the season.
Dyson may still play this season. He could sign with another team at any time in the next seven weeks, or he could sign with the Vikings, once he becomes eligible to do so.
