With training camp set to open in Mankato for the 46th consecutive year on Monday, the Vikings have turned their attention to signing rookie draft picks.
The first one to sign on the dotted line was second round pick Kyle Rudolph, the big TE out of Notre Dame. Rudolph looks to be a big part of the offense moving forward, and getting him in on time and under the wing of Visanthe Shiancoe was of prime importance. But Rudolph was the only draft pick that was signed yesterday, leaving first round pick Christian Ponder still waiting to get his deal done.
With the new rookie wage scale, to say Ponder is a holdout is premature, because a reasonable person would expect that a deal would get done today. There’s very little wiggle room for negotiations, so contract parameters seem to be pretty well set.
In other news, the Vikings did come to terms with restricted free agents Erin Henderson and S Husain Abdullah. Henderson has been a good special teams player and backup, while Abdullah was one of the few players that played the safety position for the VIkings last year that wasn’t 100% terrible.