{"id":206108,"date":"2025-07-14T10:02:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T10:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/206108\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T10:02:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T10:02:21","slug":"new-vikings-db-labeled-most-slept-on-player-on-defense-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/206108\/","title":{"rendered":"New Vikings DB labeled &#8216;most slept-on&#8217; player on defense in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Isaiah Rodgers&#8217; signing may have been lost in the shuffle of a <a href=\"https:\/\/vikingswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/vikings\/2025\/03\/10\/vikings-nfl-free-agency-tracker-analysis\/82231376007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">busy free-agency period<\/a> by the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/minnesota-vikings\/347\" data-autotag=\"839728ed-97f0-4c7c-9ea6-299b7540514e\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a>. The former <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/philadelphia-eagles\/354\" data-autotag=\"c1b3a094-e294-4a77-b1b2-dbdbd5bfa2c5\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Philadelphia Eagles<\/a> cornerback signed a modest two-year, $15 million contract with the Vikings in the first hour of free agency after only making 13 starts through five seasons. Minnesota then added the likes of Jonathan Allen, Javon Hargrave, Ryan Kelly, and Will Fries in the subsequent days.<\/p>\n<p>But that doesn&#8217;t mean the Vikings aren&#8217;t expecting big things out of Rodgers. He is going to be counted on to start on the outside and take advantage of an improved pass rush.<\/p>\n<p>Alec Lewis of The Athletic wrote about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6478565\/2025\/07\/09\/minnesota-vikings-defensive-pace-greenard-metellus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">each Vikings defender<\/a> on the current roster. When speaking about Rodgers, Lewis mentioned that the cornerback could be the most slept-on defender on the roster.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe the most slept-on Vikings defender. He\u2019s athletic. He\u2019s tough. He has ball skills. Rodgers and Byron Murphy Jr. is an underrated cornerback tandem. The question with the room is the depth behind them.<\/p>\n<p>Rodgers flashed during OTA practices, drawing <a href=\"https:\/\/vikingswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/vikings\/2025\/07\/07\/vikings-free-agent-signing-isaiah-rodgers-biggest-surprise\/84486134007\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">praise<\/a> from ESPN&#8217;s Kevin Seifert. Of course, there were no pads, and neither side was going 100 percent on the field. But it was a good sign to see Rodgers making an impact early.<\/p>\n<p>If he can live up to and even exceed expectations, Rodgers could be the latest example of the Vikings hitting big on a free-agent acquisition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isaiah Rodgers&#8217; signing may have been lost in the shuffle of a busy free-agency period by the Minnesota&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[857,247,265,5995,18452,25,12,388,7,8826,13966,20842,379,2725,9714,5919,1824,1979,9085,2982,233,259,2529,11162,246,88,6,35196,245,264,242,109,1636,4791,8316,9,266,234,1124,1825],"class_list":{"0":"post-206108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-vikings","8":"tag-allen","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-byron","12":"tag-byron-murphy","13":"tag-eagles","14":"tag-espn","15":"tag-espn-inc","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-fries","18":"tag-hargrave","19":"tag-hub","20":"tag-inc","21":"tag-isaiah","22":"tag-isaiah-rodgers","23":"tag-javon","24":"tag-javon-hargrave","25":"tag-jonathan","26":"tag-jonathan-allen","27":"tag-kelly","28":"tag-minnesota","29":"tag-minnesota-vikings","30":"tag-minnesotavikings","31":"tag-murphy","32":"tag-neutral","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-nfl","35":"tag-nfl-hub","36":"tag-overall","37":"tag-overall-neutral","38":"tag-philadelphia","39":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","40":"tag-rodgers","41":"tag-ryan","42":"tag-ryan-kelly","43":"tag-sports","44":"tag-sports-news","45":"tag-vikings","46":"tag-will","47":"tag-will-fries"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114851017354630323","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}