Vikings Claim Former Cardinals/Lions CB Chris Jones on Waivers
The Vikings added some cornerback depth to their roster on Monday afternoon ahead of their rematch against the Green Bay Packers this weekend. They signed Mark Fields II to their active roster from the practice squad and claimed former Cardinals and Lions corner Chris Jones on waivers.
Jones played his college ball at Nebraska and had strong seasons in 2015 and 2016, recording five interceptions, five tackles for loss, and 15 passes defended over that two-year span. He missed most of his senior year due to injury and went undrafted in 2018. Jones was originally signed as a UDFA by the Lions but was waived prior to the start of the season. He was scooped up by the Cardinals, where he spent 2018 and 2019 bouncing between the practice squad and the active roster.
Jones was signed by the Lions off of Arizona's practice squad in mid-September of this year, but was waived a couple days ago. In total, he's appeared in 14 regular season games (three starts) and has six passes defended and 22 total tackles. Jones has great size for the position at 6'0", 200 pounds with long arms.
The Vikings will get a chance to evaluate Jones in practice and see if he can potentially help them out down the stretch. As for Fields, he had been activated from the practice squad twice this year so he needed to be signed to the active roster in order to be available to play this week and beyond.
Claiming Jones and signing Fields gets the Vikings back up to 53 players after trading away Yannick Ngakoue and placing safety George Iloka on season-ending injured reserve. They will eventually need to waive two players once Pat Elflein and Troy Dye are activated from IR.
These moves at corner were necessitated by some injuries at that position. Kris Boyd (hamstring) has missed three straight games, Holton Hill (foot) has missed the past two, and Mike Hughes (neck) left the game against the Falcons in the first half. If none of those three are available against the Packers, the Vikings would be down to just rookies Jeff Gladney, Cameron Dantzler, and Harrison Hand, with Fields and Jones next in line for snaps.
It's possible that all of Boyd, Hill, and Hughes have recovered over the bye week, but these moves suggest the Vikings anticipate being without at least one or two of those guys for this weekend's game. We'll know more when the first injury report of the week comes out on Wednesday.
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