Vikings veteran emerges as winner of notable position battle for 2024 season

This offseason, the Minnesota Vikings have been conducting a number of positional battles out on the practice fields at the TCO Performance Center. The Vikings have already selected the winners of some of these position battles, including rookie kicker Will Reichard, and on Monday, it seems like the team has closed the book on their punting competition.

Minnesota officially announced the signing of free-agent cornerback Stephon Gilmore on Monday, and the team revealed that they have also signed free-agent wide receiver Justin Hall. In order to make room for these two new additions on their roster, the Vikings waived receiver Ty James and punter Seth Vernon.

With the departure of Vernon, it appears that Minnesota is sticking with Ryan Wright as the team's punter for the third season in a row.

Minnesota Vikings trio of specialists can now focus on preparing for 2024 regular season

Unless the Vikings add another punter in the near future, which doesn't seem very likely, Wright can rest easy now that he's been able to hold onto his spot on the roster.

Wright first joined Minnesota in 2022 when he was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Tulane. He performed very well during the Vikings' 2022 training camp and preseason, and it resulted in the team picking him to be their punter for the regular season over veteran Jordan Berry.

As a rookie, Wright ranked 11th in the NFL in net yards per punt, and only three players in the league had more punts land inside the opponent's 20-yard line than him.

2023 was a bit of a different story for Wright, as his net yards per punt ranking dropped to 18th in the NFL, and he ranked 29th in the league in percentage of punts downed inside the opponent's 20-yard line.

During this year's preseason, Wright ranks fifth in the NFL in net yards per punt, so it seems like his performance could be trending back in the right direction.

In addition to his duties as a punter, Wright is also Minnesota's holder during field goal and extra-point attempts. With Reichard hitting nine of his 10 kicks this preseason, he's clearly comfortable with Wright as his holder.

Following Monday's roster move, Wright, Reichard, and long snapper Andrew DePaola can now prepare for the upcoming regular season with clear minds. They don't have to worry about someone else taking over as the Vikings' holder and screwing up any amount of chemistry that the three specialists have already built in the last few months.

After ranking in the bottom fifth of the NFL in field-goal percentage in each of the last two years, Minnesota is hoping Wright, Reichard, and DePaola can fix some of its recent kicking struggles when they take the field together during the 2024 season.

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