‘The piece we need’: New Vikings cornerback Stephon Gilmore could make immediate impact

Stephon Gilmore arrived in Minnesota on Sunday night, spending his first full day on Monday as a member of the team he’d visited the previous week. When Gilmore entered the Vikings’ facility, cornerback Shaq Griffin wasted neither time nor subtlety when telling the two-time All-Pro what his impact could be.

”When he first got here, I told him I think he’s the piece we need in this room,” Griffin said. “You talk about depth, you talk about the type of talent we have … adding him to this team, I think is going to do wonderful things for us.”

Gilmore, the fifth cornerback the Vikings have added since the start of training camp to upgrade the position, is also the most experienced, most decorated and highest-paid member of the group. The Vikings gave him a one-year deal reportedly worth $7 million, with incentives that could push its value to $10 million, in hopes Gilmore could help stabilize a position detoured by a menagerie of misfortune.

The last time the Vikings defense ranked in the top 10 in the NFL in points allowed (2019) was also the last time they had a Pro Bowl cornerback (Xavier Rhodes). Since then, they’ve drafted six cornerbacks in the first four rounds of the draft; only Akayleb Evans has a chance to be on their 53-man roster to start the 2024 season. They’ve had only one corner — the 32-year-old Patrick Peterson in 2022 — start all 17 games in a season.

The Vikings’ effort to find help at cornerback has seemingly become a round-the-clock endeavor during the 2024 preseason after a left hamstring injury to Griffin and a season-ending ACL tear for Mekhi Blackmon followed the July 6 death of rookie Khyree Jackson in a car accident.

Coach Kevin O’Connell said Gilmore was one of the players the Vikings targeted in free agency; the cornerback won 2019 NFL Defensive Player of the Year honors in New England during Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ final year there. During Gilmore’s visit last week, the team put him through a medical exam to verify he was recovered from offseason shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum.

It was unclear as of Monday whether Gilmore would play in the team’s preseason finale in Philadelphia on Saturday, but because Gilmore arrives in Minnesota with a head start on learning Flores’ defense from his time with the Patriots, he could find himself in the lineup quickly.

”I know our coaching staff, [Flores] and myself are very excited to have him added to that group, a guy as decorated as he is coming off a really strong year in Dallas,” O’Connell said. “We’ll only add to the group, as well as hopefully working Shaq back in as we roll through the week. We’ve been able to sustain, even though we’ve had some things at that position, throughout the summer and into training camp. We’ve had some setbacks and some significant losses. We feel good about where that group is looking now.”

It certainly sets up to be the Vikings’ most experienced cornerback group in years, with the 13-year veteran Gilmore lining up across from Griffin (now in his eighth season) and sixth-year man Byron Murphy Jr. in the slot.

“Harry will tell you we’ve got one of the oldest [defensive back] rooms [in the league] now,” Griffin said, referring to 35-year-old safety Harrison Smith. “We’ve got some guys who are 29 and up, and then some guys who are 25 and down. So yeah, we’ve got some older guys in this group. We’ve got a lot of guys who can learn from guys like that; shoot, I’m one of them.”

With Gilmore and Smith going into their 13th seasons, “the type of knowledge they have,” Griffin added, “I think it’s going to help this whole team.”

Gilmore aligns, too, with the Vikings’ stated goal to use more man coverage in 2024. While Flores’ schemes have changed some since they were together in New England, Gilmore said, he recognized many of the main tenets.

“He’s aggressive. Offenses are scared to go against his defenses,” Gilmore said. “He’s always had a good defense no matter what, and I’m just trying to be part of that.”

Adding Gilmore means corners like Evans, who started 15 games in his second season, could be fighting for playing time in 2024. O’Connell said the Vikings’ use of sub packages might offer roles to some of their younger corners, adding, “There’s a ton for guys still to be working toward.”

”I would just say it’s been a competitive situation, and that really doesn’t change,” O’Connell said. “We’re maybe not going to throw Steph right into a rep count, where it’s got to be minute-to-minute competition, but I think guys should feel confident. We’ve seen some really good performances out of that room throughout camp. They’ve been tough to go against every day. … If that stays the same, we now have the depth to allow ourselves to think about who’s going to play what role.”

The Vikings could lean heavily on three corners (Gilmore, Griffin and Murphy) they signed as free agents in the past two years, as part of a secondary that’s continued to evolve.

”Any time I step between those lines, I try to go hard and show people I’ve still got it,” Gilmore said. “Just keep proving it.”