The Vikings’ 3rd-Round Selection Gets Good News Ahead of Roster Cuts

In the 2026 NFL Draft, the Minnesota selected safety Jakobe Thomas. Doing so came from within the context of seeing legendary safety Harrison Smith still undecided about his future – on that topic, how did that situation work out? — so reloading made plenty of sense.

The Vikings’ 3rd-Round selection boasts good size and some swagger within his on-field demeanour. Better yet, the defensive back was coming off a great ride to the College National Championship with the Miami Hurricanes (losing to Curt Cignetti’s and Fernando Mendoza’s Hoosiers). At minimum, Thomas was looking like a depth safety who would be an assassin on specials.

Vikings 3rd-Round Selection Jakobe Thomas Sitting in Better Spot

What’s become tough, though, is that a back injury has lingered. Some may have worried about a Gavin Bartholomew situation; the TE missed all of his debut season due to his own back injury.

Thankfully, that’s not going to happen with Thomas.

Consider the nice update that arrives from Alec Lewis of The Athletic: “Vikings practice just wrapped up a bit ago. Didn’t see S Theo Jackson, so it was a lot of Jacob Thomas and Jakobe Thomas mixing in with the 1s. Jakobe Thomas was back and flying around, his first extensive practice in a couple of weeks.”

All along, there was just a tiny chance Thomas would get cut. What seemed more plausible was possibly needing to shuffle Thomas over to an injury spot to allow him to get healthy. So long as there aren’t any setbacks, the rookie safety should be ready in time for Week 1 since he’s getting a heartier workload.

The Vikings tend to play things cautiously with player health and have certainly followed that approach with the rookie 3rd-Round selection. Seeing this thing drag out would have created some concern that may nevertheless be lingering.

For starters, the rookie has missed valuable development time. He’s therefore finding himself in a spot where it could be hard to catch up in an NFL that’s only accelerating. Things move fast in football, especially for the young lads.

There’s then the depth chart to sort through. At minimum, Josh Metellus, Theo Jackson, and Jay Ward are higher. It appears possible that Jacob Thomas is, too. Tavierre Thomas is a probable roster player due to his special teams prowess, meaning that’s already five players in the mix at safety even if Tavierre Thomas isn’t an insurmountable force.

Consider how things have looked recently for all of the Vikings’ options at safety:

• Josh Metellus — Bounce Back Season?
• Theo Jackson — Bounce Back Season?
• Jay Ward — 4th Year Growth?
• Jamal Adams — Done for Season Due to Injury
• Jakobe Thomas — Working Back from Minor Injury
• Tavierre Thomas — Special Teams Ace
• Jacob Thomas — UDFA Gem
• Kahlef Hailassie — Likely on the PS
• Harrison Smith — Help Us, Chris Tomasson

Jakobe Thomas stands at 6’1″ and roughly 210 pounds. He’ll need to overcome these early injury hiccups to prove capable of getting into the mix on specials and defense in Week 1.

Recent word of his return functions as a nice gust of wind to push the safety toward a Week 1 workload as the Packers travel to the Twin Cities for an early NFC North battle.

Senior Editor for Vikings Territory & PurplePTSD . Twitter & Bluesky: @VikingsGazette. Email: k.joudry[at]vikingsterritory[dot]com. Canadian. Jude 1:24-25.

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