Vikings defense suffers another devastating blow with latest cornerback injury

The Minnesota Vikings have had many reasons to worry about their defense this season, and there’s yet another one with Andrew Booth Jr. out for the season.

The Minnesota Vikings have recently been in some tricky situations because of their defense, most notably a massive 40-3 loss against the Dallas Cowboys in Week 11. While they did secure a 33-26 win in their most recent game against the New England Patriots, their defense remained a point of concern as they allowed a whopping 382 opponent passing yards.

News on the defense just keeps getting worse, too, with the most recent update of cornerback Andrew Booth Jr. being out for the rest of the season.

Booth underwent knee surgery for a meniscus tear stemming from the Week 11 matchup against the Cowboys, and unfortunately, there’s not much backup for Minnesota in the cornerback department. A few other cornerbacks, particularly Cameron Dantzler and Akayleb Evans, are also battling injuries.

Duke Shelley has stepped up to fill in the gaps over the past few games, and luckily, he’s put out good results. He broke up two key passes in the end zone against New England, which certainly helped them pull another win.

However, the Vikings overall just can’t seem to catch a break with their starting defense this season.

The Vikings defense needs depth and a lot of work

Injuries are common in football considering it’s such a contact sport, but issues arise when levels of depth are facing injuries, too. Depth has been a point of concern since the beginning of the season, especially when thinking of players like Za’Darius Smith and Harrison Phillips.

They rely too much on their great players but often find themselves dug in a hole that’s extremely difficult to come out of when one of said players is out for whatever reason.

They have improved significantly over the past few seasons and are far from being a bad team this season. After all, they do currently have an incredible 9-2 record, which doesn’t come by chance at this point in the season. However, it is a point of concern they need to focus on to get even better.

Unfortunately, they’ll have to scramble around the depth chart to find the best player to fill Booth’s shoes for the rest of the season.