The Minnesota Vikings’ preseason finale did not change the most important fact about Sunday afternoon: the 53-man roster still had to be set. What it did change was the level of uncertainty around the final few decisions, because a 34-6 loss in Denver came with none of Minnesota’s starters on the field and another injury in a room already dealing with complications.
That is the kind of game that matters less for the scoreboard than for the depth chart. With the roster cut deadline arriving Sunday afternoon, the Vikings were still sorting through a group that had to prove it could hold together under pressure. The result in Denver did not help that process, and it did not need to. The bigger story was which players could still be counted on once the numbers had to be trimmed to 53.
Injuries complicated the final evaluation
The clearest blow came in the first quarter, when Jacob Thomas rolled his ankle and did not return. Kevin O’Connell said Thomas has an ankle sprain and will get an MRI this weekend, which adds another layer of concern before the roster deadline. For a team already working through multiple injuries at safety, that was not a small detail. It affected not just Friday night’s game, but the larger question of how much depth Minnesota could trust.
J.J. McCarthy’s situation also hovered over the week. He exited in the second preseason game with an ankle injury, then practiced on Monday and Tuesday before O’Connell gave him Wednesday off to rest. The full picture remains unsettled, and his future in Minnesota was already described as uncertain for 2026 because of the ankle issue and whether he would be comfortable being QB3. Even without the starters on the field in Denver, that backdrop made the final preseason stretch feel more fragile than routine.
The roster task now becomes about trust
Preseason finales are rarely pretty, and this one certainly was not. But they do expose which players can survive game conditions when the regulars are watching from the sideline. Minnesota’s coaches were not judging the Broncos score so much as the ability of the back end of the roster to function through injuries, substitutions and uneven snaps.
That is also why a player like Scott remains relevant in the conversation. He played 105 offensive snaps in 2025, and that kind of usage matters when teams are deciding who can fill a role rather than just occupy a spot. The Vikings’ projected 53-man roster was never going to be built only on star power. It had to account for availability, durability and the ability to keep a structure intact when the top names are missing.
Friday’s loss in Denver did not settle those debates. It sharpened them. With the cut deadline now at hand, the Vikings are left with the same basic challenge every team faces at this time of year: turn a preseason body count into a workable roster. In Minnesota’s case, the injuries have made that job a little harder, and the final answers matter more because the margin for error is already so thin.
