Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Sat, Sept 5, the Minnesota Vikings announced the return of Harrison Smith onto their roster as they signed the veteran safety to a one-year contract worth $12.25 million. Smith had not publicly announced if he was going to retire after the 2025 NFL season, where he started 15 games and recorded 54 tackles along with intercepting two passes and forcing one fumble. Smith is one of the best safeties at blitzing the opposing quarterback and he has 13 career sacks along with 39 interceptions.

Returning for his 15th season as a Viking, Smith will seek to help out a secondary group that was in much need of depth after the season-ending injury of Jamal Adams in the preseason. Along with some rookie defensive backs in Jacob Thomas, Jakobe Thomas and Chuck Demmings, Smith rejoins an age-diverse defensive backs group with fellow teammates Joshua Metellus, Theo Jackson, Byron Murphy Jr and Jay Ward.

Smith isn’t the only veteran to sign with Minnesota leading up to the opening kickoff game on Sept 13 against the Green Bay Packers. Veteran linebacker Kyle Van Noy signed a contract to join the Vikings’ practice squad and with 12 years of experience with the Detroit Lions, New England Patriots, Miami Dolphins, Los Angeles Chargers and Baltimore Ravens, he could be valuable in the middle of the defensive formation if Blake Cashman, Eric Wilson, Jake Golday or Ivan Pace Jr were to suffer an injury. Van Noy has 375 career solo tackles along with 57 sacks and 14 forced fumbles. With two Super Bowl rings in his career and plenty of playoff games played, Van Noy holds a lot of value to a locker room that became a bit younger in 2026.

With both signings of defensive players in their mid-to-late thirties(Van Noy is 35, Smith is 37), the Minnesota defense has a couple of more veterans to offset a younger defensive group with rookies Caleb Banks and Domonique Orange at the defensive line, Golday in the linebacker corps and Demmings and the Thomas “bros” in the secondary. As the regular season approaches, this Vikings roster is set to compete against plenty of good opponents upcoming on the first half of their schedule, which features more road games than home games. More memories could be on the way for Smith, who is already an established franchise icon and one of the last remaining players from the Minneapolis Miracle game to be on the active roster. Along with being one of the last remaining players from the Rick Spielman era that included the head coach tenures of Leslie Frazier and Mike Zimmer, the Hitman will potentially play his final season and hopefully get his team in purple back into the playoffs and potentially somewhere that no Vikings team has gone in 50 years.