Makeup Of A Roster

Every NFL roster is put together differently. Here's a look at how the Minnesota Vikings obtained the players that make up their current 89-man roster.

Draft

First Round
Harrison Smith (2012)
Sharrif Floyd (2013)
Xavier Rhodes (2013)
Anthony Barr (2014)
Teddy Bridgewater (2014)
Trae Waynes (2015)
Laquon Treadwell (2016)

Second Round
Kyle Rudolph (2011)
Eric Kendricks (2015)
Mackensie Alexander (2016)
Dalvin Cook (2017)

Third Round
Jerick McKinnon (2014)
Danielle Hunter (2015)
Pat Elflein (2017)

Fourth Round
Brian Robison (2007)
Everson Griffen (2010)
Jarius Wright (2012)
T.J. Clemmings (2015)
Willie Beavers (2016)
Jaleel Johnson (2017)
Ben Gedeon (2017)

Fifth Round 
Stefon Diggs (2015)
Kentrell Brothers (2016)
Rodney Adams (2017)
Danny Isidora (2017)

Sixth Round
Antone Exum Jr. (2014)
Moritz Boehringer (2016)
David Morgan (2016)
Bucky Hodges (2017)

Seventh Round
Shamar Stephen (2014)
Jabari Price (2014)
Austin Shepherd (2015)
Edmond Robinson (2015)
Stephen Weatherly (2016)
Jayron Kearse (2016)
Stacy Coley (2017)
Ifeadi Odenigbo (2017)
Elijah Lee (2017)
Jack Tocho (2017)

Free Agents

Unrestricted Free Agents
Linval Joseph (2014)
Tom Johnson (2014)
Terence Newman (2015)
Alex Boone (2016)
Emmanuel Lamur (2016)
Riley Reiff (2017)
Mike Remmers (2017)
Latavius Murray (2017)
Datone Jones (2017)
Case Keenum (2017)

"Street" Free Agents
Joe Berger (2011)
Andrew Sendejo (2014)
Kevin McDermott (2015)
Bishop Sankey (2016)
Cayleb Jones (2016)
Kai Forbath (2016)
Terrell Sinkfield (2017)
Nick Truesdell (2017)
Reid Fragel (2017)
Taylor Symmank (2017)
Ryan Quigley (2017)
Marshall Koehn (2017)
Michael Floyd (2017)
Will Sutton (2017)

Undrafted Free Agents
Marcuc Sherels (2010)
Adam Thielen (2013)
Zac Kerin (2014)
Anthony Harris (2015)
Taylor Heinicke (2015)
Isaac Fruechte (2015)
Tre Roberson (2016)
Kyle Carter (2016)
C.J. Ham (2016)
RJ Shelton (2017)
Shaan Washington (2017)
Eric Wilson (2017)
Caleb Kidder (2017)
Aviante Collins (2017)
Freddie Tagaloa (2017)
Wes Lunt (2017)
Tashawn Bower (2017)
Horace Richardson (2017)
Sam McCaskill (2017)
Dylan Bradley (2017)
Josiah Price (2017)
Terrell Newby (2017)

Trade

Jeremiah Sirles (2015)
Nick Easton (2015)
Sam Bradford (2016)

Practice Squad Pilfering

Rashod Hill (2016)
-The Vikings plucked Hill from the Practice Squad of the Jacksonville Jaguars during the 2016 season.

By The Numbers:
Draft: 39
Free Agency: 46
Trade: 3
Practice Squad Pilfering: 1

When the roster is trimmed to 53 in September, drafted players will easily outnumber those added through some form of free agency. The free agency numbers are currently bloated a bit by the 13 undrafted free agents added at the conclusion of April's draft. Those players have the longest odds of making the team. That was also once said about Marcus Sherels and Adam Thielen and both are top notch contributors now. Sherels has been given long odds of making the team in nearly all of his eight training camps with the Vikings and he's always still standing when the season starts.

The Vikings roster has been nearly completely turned over since Rick Spielman was promoted to general manager in 2012. Only five players joined team before then.

Brian Robison (2007)
Everson Griffen (2010)
Marcus Sherels (2010)
Kyle Rudolph (2011)
Joe Berger (2011)

Only ten players joined the team before Mike Zimmer was named coach in 2014.


Brian Robison (2007)
Everson Griffen (2010)
Marcus Sherels (2010)
Kyle Rudolph (2011)
Joe Berger (2011)
Harrison Smith (2012)
Jarius Wright (2012)
Sharrif Floyd (2013)
Xavier Rhodes (2013)
Adam Thielen (2013)

This is definitely a team put together in the four years that Spielman and Zimmer have been together. That's hardly a surprise when a coach is given at least four years.

The Vikings are a young team. The core of the team is made up of mostly players aged 23-26 years with youngish experienced players like Everson Griffen, Kyle Rudolph, Harrison Smith, and Xavier Rhodes sprinkled into the mix. Then they have ancient to truly ancient players like Brian Robison and Terence Newman to often guidance and wisdom. Actually, they aren't ancient. Robison is a youthful 34 and Newman will be an age-defying 39 by the time the season starts.

This roster makeup exercise will have to be repeated when it's trimmed to the final 53 players.