It doesn’t get much more official than Vikings.com for purple news, so we deemed giving a little love to their “unofficial” depth chart going into Sunday’s game against Detroit necessary at the least. Come on, something unofficial on the official website of the Vikings? That’s more official than any of the other speculation out there, right?
The big takeaway from this depth chart is actually something that head coach Leslie Frazier has confirmed: 28-year old Marvin Mitchell will start alongside Chad Greenway and Erin Henderson in the linebacking core, not Desmond Bishop.
Bishop has had an up and down preseason, struggling with injuries and missing the preseason opener, but bouncing back to lead the purple in tackles each of the final two games.
Mitchell led the Vikes in tackles in the second preseason game, but recorded just one tackle in the two games he played outside of that, missing the final preseason contest. He’s only played over 60 snaps in a game once in his NFL career, according to former Star Tribune Vikings beat writer Kevin Seifert, and only saw 56 combined snaps this preseason. Coming out of that amount with eight total tackles can’t be considered a complete failure, and clearly the Vikings have liked what they’ve seen.
Frazier has challenged Bishop to do more the entire preseason, at one point saying he wasn’t battling for a starting spot, but battling for a roster spot.
The rest of the depth chart, with very few surprises, can be seen here.
