When roster cuts were announced yesterday for the Minnesota Vikings, one name I didn’t expect to see was Solomon Elimimian. The former CFL all star linebacker will have to try and make a roster somewhere else.
Now it’s not overly shocking that Elimimian was a casualty at linebacker, given the fact he was primarily practicing with the third team, but he did show promise in the preseason. He was good especially in the first game, where he recorded a couple of tackles and an interception.
Elimimian was voted the hardest hitting player in the CFL by his peers this past season. You’d figure a hard hitting linebacker always has a chance to make the roster, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Overall the main reason for his cut has to be the hamstring injury that’s bothered him over the past week to ten days, plus the play of rookie linebacker Audie Cole. The combination of these two factors led to the demise of Elimimian as a Viking.
Maybe it was because I loved his back story, maybe it was because he had a reputation for hard hits, but I just liked something about Solomon Elimimian. I figured that, worst case scenario, he would be on the practice squad to start the year.
As it stands now, the Vikings depth chart at linebacker is as follows:
SLB – Chad Greenway
MLB – Jasper Brinkley
WLB – Erin Henderson
Backups:
Marvin Mitchell
Audie Cole
Tyrone Mckenzie
Brandon Burton
Stay tuned for all the latest as we head into the final week of the preseason.
Follow Andrew Fisher on Twitter @the_realfish
