Players who played their last snap with the Vikings

I find the idea of examining which players spent their last NFL snaps with our team fascinating - being that these players received zero snaps after their Vikings tenure, and not due to immediately retiring. Let's do a quick analysis of some of these players and why their careers ended where they did - though it's possible some of them may not be done yet.


WR Bisi Johnson

Back-to-back torn ACLs has doomed his future outlook. He's only 26, but has only received offers for workouts.

WR Dede Westbrook

Westbrook joined Minnesota in 2021 after a torn ACL in the previous season, and became our punt returner. He was underwhelming and showed zero juice as a receiver. In 2022 he spent one month on the Packers' practice squad. Now 30, his career is toast.

CB Bashaud Breeland

Most recently he's been arrested, but even from the start Breeland was an addition for Zimmer to have a veteran player to play over Dantzler. He was horrid in coverage and a cancer for the team, resulting in his early release in December 2021. He never received a workout offer since, because NFL teams don't give chances to bad players with bad attitudes.

G Dru Samia

Surprising, huh? Samia ended up on the Jets' practice squad after he was axed, but he never played a snap for them. It was apparent from the get-go that Samia was terrible, never able to surface above the 3rd team in training camp, but Spielman forced the team to carry him as their primary backup guard in 2020, which led to some of the most abysmal play we've ever seen on the offensive line. Somehow it took an injury to get him benched for Ezra Cleveland. All other NFL teams without the sunk cost fallacy of drafting him too high have had no interest in rostering him.

WR Chad Beebe

Once a preseason hero, Beebe's career ended quickly after winning the 3rd WR job in 2020. He was unproductive and let go, and then he failed to make the Texans roster in 2021. He's vanished since then. He simply wasn't good enough as a receiver, was a poor punt returner, and wasn't valuable enough on special teams to land another gig.

TE Chris Herndon

Most of us knew the Herndon trade was a bad move even at the time, but for his 2021 season to be his final year in the NFL? Brutal trade, Spielman. He was only 25 years old! I don't have any commentary on his play, but from what I can gather the offensive coaches had zero interest in letting him play, as he averaged about 11 snaps per game (he wasn't hurt). He caught a wimpy 4 passes for a supposed pass-first TE. Hopefully our days of making blunders at the TE position are over.

G Dakota Dozier

Big surprise that the Vikings were Dozier's last stop! He spent 2022 on the Bears' injured reserve, but he was only going to be a backup there at best. They gave Dozier way too many chances to prove himself, resulting in far too many hits allowed on Kirk Cousins and Dalvin Cook. This is the danger of giving players chances based upon system familiarity rather than talent.

K Dan Bailey

Speaking of sunk costs, Bailey's 2020 season was unbelievably bad with a putrid 68.2% FG rate while also missing a whopping 6 XPs. Any team would rather give a kicker off the street a chance rather than watch him blow, but the Vikings somehow gave him a full 16 games.

P Britton Colquitt

I don't have anything too negative to say about Colquitt. His net punting yards dipped in 2020 after having a strong 2019 season, and they opted to move on to Jordan Berry in 2021 after a rough preseason from Colquitt. He was 36 at the time. I'd say the Vikings moved on at the right time.

C Brett Jones

Jones was a good enough backup center for three years, but curiously didn't get a chance until the Broncos signed him in 2021 just to release him on cutdown day. He was 30 in 2021, but teams lose interest in older players even if they recently played well enough.

DL Hercules Mata'afa

Now in the USFL, Mata'afa surprisingly didn't get a single signing from any team after he hit the open market in 2021. The culprit is likely his status as a tweener - too small for DT, couldn't handle DE. I wouldn't put it past him to get another crack at the NFL in the future.

DT Sheldon Richardson

This was an odd one, Richardson was a quality rotational DT in 2021 but didn't get a single shake of the dice afterwards. He was 31 so it's not entirely surprising, but I think he deserved another year in the league.

WR Albert Wilson

The Vikings have a treasure trove of middling veteran WRs of whom they gave a shot and failed to make the team, and then vanished into the aether. He joins the likes of Kendall Wright, Tavarres King, Jordan Taylor, and Josh Doctson.



Any thoughts?