Over the balance of six games, it’s been an excellent debut season for cornerback Isaiah Rodgers with the Minnesota Vikings.
Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles was an unfortunate exception, though.
Eagles fans have missed Rodgers, who served a key depth role in 2024 in helping Philadelphia win 16 of their final 17 games, culminating in Super Bowl LIX.
The Eagles are woefully thin at the cornerback position this year behind Quinyon Mitchell and nickel Cooper DeJean. That Rodgers was allowed to walk in free agency for a bargain two-year, $11 million contract with the Vikings in free agency is a decision Eagles fans haven’t let general manager Howie Roseman live down.
That tone might change after Sunday’s win over the Vikings in U.S. Bank Stadium. Philly’s passing game sprang to life against Brian Flores’ typically stringy group, and the target down the field became brutally obvious as the game wore on.
Minnesota Vikings CB Isaiah Rodgers had a game to forget against old friend DeVonta Smith and the Philadelphia Eagles
Advanced statistics compiled by PFF are 100 percent subjective. With that said, the numbers paint a grim picture for Rodgers’ performance against Jalen Hurts and his former teammates.
Per PFF, Rodgers was torched for 151 of Hurts’ 326 passing yards, including a 79-yard bomb for a touchdown to DeVonta Smith; Rodgers was also charged for five receptions and three first downs allowed in coverage.
Smith is a tough receiver to handle, especially with A.J. Brown on the other side of the field. The Eagles moved him around the formation well on Sunday.
Minnesota’s entire defense had a hard time with Smith and Philly’s passing game; Rodgers just became the unfortunate scapegoat for a subpar performance overall on home turf.
Rodgers had allowed a passer rating of 60 or fewer in four of the Vikings’ five games to start the season. He had one of the best singular defensive performances in NFL history against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 3.
This game was an outlier in the other direction; that doesn’t mean it will become the norm for Rodgers over the second half of the season.
Rodgers took ownership of his performance and said all the right things after Sunday’s loss. The Vikings are going to need him, and for a defense that hadn’t allowed a quarterback to throw for more than 210 yards in a game all season, this Eagles game should serve as a wake-up call for everyone involved.