The Vikings’ Main Roster Need from a National View

Most hardcore Minnesota Vikings fans wonder if the team will sign an extra linebacker or backup guard in the next two months before the regular season begins, but according to CBS Sports, the club is a little skimpy at safety.

Josh Edwards analyzed every NFL team’s main roster need ahead of training camp, claiming the purple team might need a safety.

Harrison Smith’s Uncertain Status Drives the Concern

Edwards: Vikings Need a Safety

CBS Sports landed on safety, and Edwards opined, “With Harrison Smith not currently in the plans for the 2026 season, safety is a weakness after selecting Florida defensive tackle Caleb Banks in the first round. Joshua Metellus, Jay Ward, Jakobe Thomas and Theo Jackson are competing for those two spots.”

“The interior offensive line needs to stay healthy and Blake Brandel is tasked with filling Ryan Kelly’s shoes post-retirement. Linebacker and cornerback are a few other spots to monitor.”

For 14 years, Smith has held down the fort at safety for the Vikings, and recently, co-pilots like Camryn Bynum and Josh Metellus have faithfully served alongside him. With Smith perhaps retired — although he never explicitly announced it — Edwards is evidently paranoid that the current safety unit isn’t enough.

The Current Group Might Be Enough?

If one assumes that Smith will not return for Year No. 15, the safety section of the depth chart still has a full platoon of names that will probably make the 53-man depth chart at the end of August:

• Josh Metellus
• Jay Ward
• Theo Jackson
• Jakobe Thomas
• Tavierre Thomas

While Smith, in theory, would be missed, most NFL teams get by just fine with five safeties. Edwards must believe the current batch of safeties lacks talent because quantity is not a problem. None of those five is unplayable.

The Smith Angle

Of course, if Smith re-signs with the Vikings for one more year — that’s a real possibility and not a hot take — the safety fears can be set to the side, at least for a year. Even at age 37, Smith would likely play at a serviceable, if not better, level, and in a jiffy, the so-called safety roster need would fall by the wayside.

It’s just that Smith’s status is a mystery, an offseason whodunnit for the 2026 Vikings.

Smith’s longtime teammates, wide receiver Adam Thielen and fullback C.J. Ham, retired in March. The Vikings even made an event of it. That was the perfect spot for Smith to go out with his pals, but he did not, leading fans to speculate further about his future.

Perhaps Smith has chosen to skip the grueling part of the summer for the first time in his career, eyeing a contract sometime in August or later. If not, it will remain bizarre that he walked away without saying goodbye.

The Viking Age‘s Brad Berreman wrote Tuesday about Smith, “The idea that he could wait until into the season to return has been put out there, and that seems like more of a possibility as more time passes without news. Maybe Smith is not as on the fence about retirement as it has seemed he is for the last four months.”

“Maybe ‘plans for retirement’ are a fairly recent development, whatever the reasons are to push it that way. In any case, as everyone waits for an answer about Smith’s future, the trend toward retirement has become hard to ignore.”

The Free Agent Options

Here’s a little secret about the NFL and free agency: there are always a handful of decent safeties on the free-agent wire, usually older veterans. The summer of 2026 is no different:

• Jamal Adams
• Quandre Diggs
• Mike Edwards
• Terrell Edmunds
• Rayshawn Jenkins
• Ifeatu Melifonwu
• Jabrill Peppers
• Jordan Poyer
• Taylor Rapp
• Donovan Wilson
• Xavier Woods

Rather easily, Minnesota could sign a man on the list above, and just like that, the suspect safety depth would evaporate.

Rookie Jakobe Thomas could also see more action if Smith remains retired. NFL writer Trevor Ripley noted this week, “The Vikings selected Thomas out of Miami in this April’s NFL Draft, but it’s hard to start in the NFL as a rookie. It’s even harder to start for Brian Flores as a rookie.

“The Vikings clearly have some options, but how Thomas progresses could be the x-factor in all this. If he’s not able to handle a significant role, Ward or even an outside signing may slide up into the starting rotation.”

The Vikings’ defense ranked third in the league last year per EPA/Play and DVOA.

Dustin Baker is a novelist and political scientist. His second novel, The Invaders , is out now. So is … More about Dustin Baker