Reaction to the Vikings signing Stephon Gilmore

The Vikings add the veteran cornerback to shore up their biggest weakness

© Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

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By Matthew Coller

With only a few weeks left before opening day, the Minnesota Vikings have added a starting cornerback to the mix. On Sunday the Vikings signed veteran Stephon Gilmore to a reported one-year, $10 million contract with $7 million guaranteed.

Let’s break down what the addition of Gilmore means…

Where he fits

When second-year corner Mekhi Blackmon was lost to an ACL injury on the first day of training camp and saw Shaq Griffin go down immediately after that (with an injury that’s not expected to keep him out long term), the Vikings signed veteran Fabian Moreau. Since then we have seen Moreau mix in with the first team along with Akayleb Evans and Byron Murphy Jr.

Now that Gilmore is in the mix, he will be expected to start along with Murphy Jr. when they are in a two-corner personnel grouping and play the outside with Griffin and Murphy Jr. going into the slot when they are in a nickel package. Evans will likely be relegated to depth. It would seem that Moreau will also fall into that category but that depends on whether the staff liked what they saw from him in camp. They could elect to put standout UDFA Dwight McGlothern on the 53-man roster and cut Moreau.

The Vikings have talked about their desire to play more man coverage this year. If Gilmore is the same player that he was last season, it is more plausible that they will be able to do that. Gilmore ranked 10th in PFF grade among starting corners when playing man coverage. He also played man coverage on 43% of his snaps, per PFF, which is nearly 20% higher than anyone on the Vikings last year.

Bucking the age curve

The football universe has come to understand that running backs hit a wall when they are in their late 20s but the same is somewhat true for cornerbacks. In 2021 PFF studied positional age curves and corners were second to running backs in terms of the least amount of WAR value generated after the age of 30.

Naturally that raises a red flag for any corner over 30 but especially heading into an age-34 season as Gilmore is. Since 2014 there have only been seven cornerbacks age 34 or older who have started at least 12 games in a season.