With the Minnesota Vikings now going through the process of putting together their roster, there will likely be some questions as to how they go about doing that. We are going to attempt to answer those questions in this post.
As we’ve previously mentioned, teams have until 5:00 PM Central on Sunday, 30 August to trim their rosters to 53 players. They can do those by letting players go, making trades, and other means that we will detail.
Released vs Waived
Over the next couple of days, you will hear about players being
both released and waived by their teams, including the Vikings. There is a significant difference between those two in terms of what sort of freedom a player has over where he goes after his previous team lets him go.
Players with more than four accrued seasons of NFL experience will be released. A player that is released becomes a free agent and is free to sign with another NFL team immediately.
Any player with less than four accrued NFL seasons will be waived by their teams. That means they are subject to the league’s waiver process.
Waiver Process
After teams finalize their 53-man rosters, teams will have until noon Central time on Monday, 31 August to place claims on any players that were let go and are subject to the waiver process. There is a waiver priority list, and that list is the same as the first-round draft order from the 2026 NFL Draft. To refresh your memory, that means it looks like this:
- Las Vegas Raiders
- New York Jets
- Arizona Cardinals
- Tennessee Titans
- New York Giants
- Cleveland Browns
- Washington Commanders
- New Orleans Saints
- Kansas City Chiefs
- Cincinnati Bengals
- Miami Dolphins
- Dallas Cowboys
- Atlanta Falcons
- Baltimore Ravens
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers
- Indianapolis Colts
- Detroit Lions
- Minnesota Vikings
- Carolina Panthers
- Green Bay Packers
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- Los Angeles Chargers
- Philadelphia Eagles
- Jacksonville Jaguars
- Chicago Bears
- Buffalo Bills
- San Francisco 49ers
- Houston Texans
- Los Angeles Rams
- Denver Broncos
- New England Patriots
- Seattle Seahawks
As you can see, the Vikings sit at #18 on the waiver priority list. That means if they put in a waiver claim on a player, they need to hope that none of the 17 teams above them put in a claim on the same player. If even one of those teams claims the same player, they have priority over the Vikings and the Vikings won’t get that player.
Any team can claim as many players as they want during the waiver process. If they are awarded a player, they have to make a corresponding move to add that player to the 53-man roster.
Suspended Players
A suspended player will not count against the team’s 53-man roster. Jeshaun Jones, who was recently suspended for three games for violating the league’s substance policy, could stay with the team for the first three weeks of the season and not count against the 53-man roster, although he wouldn’t be allowed in the facility or be able to participate in any team activities. Or, if the team were to release him and he signed somewhere else, he would not be available to his new team for the first three weeks of the season, either.
Injured Reserve
Should the Vikings have any players that they feel need to spend time on injured reserve, they can place two on IR with a designation to return during the season. Those returnees would count against their allotment of players who are allowed to return during the season, but would not count against the 53-man roster for cutdown purposes.
International Player Partnership Program Players
Right now, the Vikings have a roster exemption for punter Brett Thorson as a part of the league’s International Player Partnership Program. If they determine that he has won the punting battle over Johnny Hekker and makes the active roster, they no longer get an exemption for him. He would be a regular member of the 53-man roster. If they waive him, nobody else claims him, and they bring him back to the practice squad, they could then get an exemption for him to be a 17th member of the practice squad.
Practice Squad
Once all of the waiver claims have been processed by the league, teams are free to sign players who remain unclaimed to the practice squad. We will have a separate practice squad tracker when the time comes and go over all the practice squad rules in that post.
That should be everything you need to know as the Vikings set about building a roster that will, hopefully, improve on their current +3500 odds to win this year’s Super Bowl (thank you, FanDuel Sportsbook).
We’ll be tracking all of the moves the Vikings make on their road to the 53-man roster in our roster tracker, so be sure to keep checking back there for the latest!
Do FanDuel link when you can get some odds.
