5 Vikings players who have boosted their stock in the first 5 weeks

Which Vikings players have boosted their stock the most over the first five weeks of the season? With the Vikings off this week, we’re going to pick five players who have impressed the most so far, relative to expectations coming into the season. This isn’t a ranking of the team’s best players; we already knew Justin Jefferson and Christian Darrisaw and Jonathan Greenard were really good, so they won’t be found here.

Let’s dive into the list, which isn’t in any particular order.

Two things can be true at the same time: One can believe J.J. McCarthy should get the starting quarterback job back once he’s healthy, while also recognizing that Wentz did exactly what the Vikings needed him to do over the past three weeks while McCarthy was hurt. The Vikings had to find a way to go 2-1 or better, and they were able to do that.

Wentz was able to provide offensive competency for the Vikings, which they struggled to find during McCarthy’s first two games. He got the ball into the hands of Jefferson and his other weapons, completing 69 of 100 passes for 759 yards, five touchdowns, and two picks. Out of 37 quarterbacks with at least 50 dropbacks this season, Wentz ranks 17th in passer rating, 13th in adjusted EPA per play, and sixth in completion percentage over expected.

The Vikings have to play McCarthy in order to find out what they have in the 22-year-old and potentially raise their ceiling for this season and beyond. But Wentz took this golden opportunity and showed the league that he’s still capable of being an effective low-end starter, which should lead to another opportunity to play elsewhere in the future.

In much more under-the-radar fashion, Scott also capitalized on an injury to a player in front of him on the depth chart and boosted his stock. The former undrafted free agent out of Maine stepped in as the Vikings’ No. 2 running back after Aaron Jones went down, and the results have been solid. Scott has 49 rushing yards on 15 carries (and a fumble), but more notably, he’s caught seven passes for 63 yards and a touchdown, with six of those catches coming against the Steelers in Dublin.

When Jones eventually comes off IR, Scott will return to a bit role as the Vikings’ RB3. Still, he’s probably already done enough to at least extend his NFL career by a few years due to his hybrid abilities as a running back and wide receiver. He’ll get at least one more game in the RB2 role.

No NFL defensive player has had a more impressive single-game performance than Rodgers…maybe ever? His Week 3 against the Bengals will go down in history: Two defensive touchdowns, two forced fumbles, an end zone pass breakup, and a perfect 99.9 PFF grade. It’s a day that might never be topped. For that reason alone, he has to be on this list.

Across the other four games, Rodgers’ performance has been solid but unspectacular. He’s been pretty good in coverage and reliable as a tackler. He would’ve had a second interception on the final play of the Browns game in London, had Kevin O’Connell not called a timeout just before the snap. Rodgers has emerged as a playmaker in the Vikings’ secondary, and they’re going to need more splash plays — and quietly solid reps — from him over the final 12 weeks of the season.

The Vikings spent a significant amount of money this offseason on a pair of veteran pass-rushing defensive tackles in Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. And while both players have been fine, Minnesota’s most productive and impactful interior pass rusher has been a second-year player they signed out of the UFL in 2024.

Redmond, on a league minimum salary, leads the Vikings in sacks (3) and is the team’s highest-graded defensive tackle by PFF. His pressure rate is right in line with Hargrave’s and higher than Allen’s, and he’s been a better run defender than both vets. Redmond and the last guy on this list have outshined the big-name free agents and forced Brian Flores to play his top four DTs more or less equally. Redmond will be an exclusive rights free agent after this season, and the Vikings will almost certainly look to keep him around for a while.

He’s been overshadowed a bit by Redmond’s emergence, but Rodriguez has had quite the start to the season in his own right. The 2024 seventh-round pick, who played at the smallest of schools in college, looks like a legitimately good NFL defensive tackle. LDR uses his violent hands to make plays against the run — his four tackles for loss are tied with Redmond and Greenard for the team lead — and to occasionally supply some pass rush juice. He figures to play 30+ snaps on a weekly basis moving forward.