Vikings sign TE Nick Muse

This could be bigger than you think going forward

The Minnesota Vikings have ensured yet another of their own is going to stay home for the 2024 NFL season.

The team has announced that they have re-signed TE Nick Muse. He’s the second of the team’s three Exclusive Rights Free Agents to sign, following safety Theo Jackson’s signing a couple of weeks ago.

Muse was a seventh-round pick of the Vikings in the 2022 NFL Draft. He started his rookie year on the practice squad but was promoted to the big club in November of that year. He also spent the majority of this past season on the practice squad but was called up following the injury to T.J. Hockenson. He caught his first NFL pass in the season finale against Detroit, a 22-yard catch-and-run.

While this signing might not seem like much on the surface, as it stands right now Muse is one of two healthy tight ends on the roster with Hockenson’s status for the start of next season up in the air. That means that, right now, he’s the #2 tight end behind Josh Oliver until Hockenson recovers.

As an Exclusive Rights Free Agent, all the Vikings need to do was to extend Muse a qualifying offer and he would not have been able to negotiate with any other team. That won’t be a concern in any case now because he’s signed a deal to return to the team, the terms of which have not yet been disclosed.

Again, not a signing that’s going to grab a lot of headlines but, given the state of the tight end position for the Vikings, one that might be more important than it looks right now in the long run.