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The Minnesota Vikings will be without their top cornerback in veteran Patrick Peterson for at least three games.
Peterson was placed on the team’s injured reserve list a week ago with a hamstring injury he suffered in Week 6 against the Carolina Panthers.
The Vikings pass rush has proven to be one of the league’s most formidable units, led by Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen.
However, the team’s coverage could use some juice with a daunting schedule upcoming.
Bleacher Report suggested the Vikings should chase a cornerback to add depth approaching the Nov. 2 trade deadline and named former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Houston Texans cornerback Vernon Hargreaves III as the ideal candidate.
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Hargreaves Outperforming Vikings Cornerbacks
Bleacher Report’s Brent Sobleski named an ideal trade target for each NFL team last week and chose Hargreaves as the Vikings’ top option given the potential for Peterson’s prolonged absence.
“Vernon Hargreaves III started for both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Houston Texans. He’s only 26 and is a free agent after this season. The Vikings should call the Texans in an attempt to add one more corner,” Sobleski wrote after referring to Zimmer’s penchant for never having too many corners.
Hargreave currently boasts a higher Pro Football Focus coverage grade (65.1) than any Vikings cornerback despite playing on a struggling Texans defense that has allowed the sixth-most points and seventh-most yards per game this season.
Peterson owns the top Vikings cornerback coverage grade at 61.9, ranking 61st of 130 cornerbacks who have played at least 20% of their team’s defensive snaps, entering the bye week.
The likely starting duo without Peterson would be Bashaud Breeland (53.2 coverage grade) and Cameron Dantzler (69.6), who rank in the bottom half of cornerbacks in the league.
Hargreaves could help bolster the Vikings cornerback depth that doesn’t have a reliable outside corner option on the roster beyond Dantzler and Breeland.
Hargreaves is on a one-year, $2 million contract with the Texans, which would make his signing essentially a replacement on the cap sheet for Stephen Weatherly, who was traded to the Denver Broncos on Saturday.
The Texans have been shuffling their defensive arrangement and have started Hargreaves in five games this season, although he played just eight defensive snaps against the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
Entering a rebuild mode in the post-Deshaun Watson era, the Texans could be willing to part with Hargreaves for a sixth- or seventh-round pick to build draft capital for next year.
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Vikings Defense Becoming the Team’s Strength
While it has yet to feel like this year’s defense has reemerged to its former glory, the unit has produced solid individual performances through six weeks.
Armon Watts, who has started in place of Michael Pierce for the past two weeks, is the sixth-ranked interior defensive lineman this season with an 81.5 PFF position grade so far. Dalvin Tomlinson is ranked 12th at the position with a 77.2 grade.
On the ends of the defensive line, Hunter ranks 12th in the NFL at his position with an 83.7 PFF grade, followed by Griffen, who has shined at the age of 33, posting the 19th-best PFF position grade (77.9) among edge rushers.
Safeties Harrison Smith (74.6, ranked No. 8) and Xavier Woods (71.0, ranked No. 14) have both performed well in their first year as a tandem.
Eric Kendricks is currently ranked ninth by PFF with a 74.7 grade.
Here’s a complete look at both the starting offense and defense’s individual position grades so far this season.
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