MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Vikings’ already sparse cornerback room got a little more barren Wednesday when Mekhi Blackmon went down with an injury.

The second-year player tore his ACL, according to the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, so he’ll miss his sophomore season. The tragic death of rookie Khyree Jackson dealt another blow to the position group.

Blackmon, a third-round pick a year ago, ended up playing 43% of defensive snaps last season and was an emerging presence for Brian Flores’ unit. With him now out, the only sure thing at cornerback is Byron Murphy. Behind him, there are a lot of question marks: free agent addition Shaq Griffin is on his fifth team in as many seasons; third-year players Andrew Booth Jr. and Akayleb Evans have yet to show much consistency; and recent signing Duke Shelley has flashed at times, but is undersized.

The Vikings did add depth CB Jacobi Francis on Thursday, but they may look to make more moves at the position before the season begins. Here are a few options if the Vikings decide to sign another cornerback.

Xavien Howard

Howard is likely the best free agent corner on the market; he’s a former All-Pro with 29 career interceptions. Beyond that, he’s a natural fit for the Vikings’ defense, having played under Flores in Miami. Howard is 31 and suffered a foot injury at the end of last season. He may also be looking for more money than the Vikings care to offer. But he’s about as good an option as they’re likely to find this late in the offseason. 

Stephon Gilmore

Gilmore, 33, is a former Defensive Player of the Year on the tail end of his career. He’s nowhere near the player he once was and has bounced around the league over the past few seasons, but it’s not like the Vikings have their pick of the litter this close to the season. Last year in Dallas, Gilmore started all 17 games, logging two interceptions and 13 passes defended.

Patrick Peterson

Peterson makes the list solely because he’s a familiar face, having played for the Vikings from 2021-2022. At 34 years old, Peterson’s lost the athleticism that once made him a premier player, but he still has a nose for the ball. In 11 of his 13 seasons, he’s grabbed multiple interceptions, including the last two in Pittsburgh and Minnesota. Last season, he started 16 games for the Steelers.

J.C. Jackson

Jackson, 28, looked like a rising star in New England before signing a huge deal with the Los Angeles Chargers. In L.A., though, he struggled greatly, and got traded back to the Patriots midway through his second season. The Pats then cut him at the end of the year. Jackson will likely never again be the premier player he was in New England, but if Flores can get him back on track, he could be a solid contributor for the Vikings.

Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

As Democrats scramble to assemble a ticket following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is putting himself out there as potential vice-presidential pick. He is making the rounds of national talk shows bragging about his record. A closer look reveals little to brag about.

During his first term as governor, Walz faced two major challenges: The riots following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and COVID-19. He fumbled both.

As the Twin Cities burned for three days in May 2020, Walz froze, terrified of upsetting his party’s activist base which sympathized with the rioters, for whom Kamala Harris raised money. Walz hesitated to commit the National Guard — whom he dismissed as “19-year-old cooks” — but when they finally were deployed, the violence ceased immediately.

This concern for criminals over law-abiding citizens has contributed to Minnesota becoming a high-crime state for the first time in recent history, with part one crimes, such as murder, aggravated assault and rape, now above the national average. Indeed, Minnesota’s crime rates began climbing in 2018, when Walz took office and two years before George Floyd’s death. In 2024, violent crime in Minneapolis remains 29% above 2019.

In response to the second challenge, COVID-19, in defiance of the science, Walz shut down schools, churches and businesses and instituted draconian mask mandates and shelter in place orders. This was driven by a computer model cooked up by a couple of graduate students over a weekend and which was such a failure it was quietly abandoned. Walz spent $7 million on a morgue to hold all the forecast bodies. This, too, was quietly sold without ever housing a single body. Walz’s failed nursing home policies resulted in over 5,000 deaths from COVID, one of the highest percentages in the country. And the man who likes to talk tough on cable news, telling Republicans to “mind your own damn business,” created a phone line for people to snitch on their neighbors who violated COVID regulations.

For all this government activity in response to COVID-19, Walz still managed to oversee the largest COVID fraud scheme in the country, with $250 million stolen. Millions more have been wasted in other fraud schemes throughout his time in office, but no one has been fired or held accountable.

Walz frequently touts his experience as an educator, but Minnesotans have seen no benefit from this, with the quality of Minnesota’s K-12 schools falling steadily during his time in office. Minnesota fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math scores on national tests are the lowest in 30 years. On the education component of CNBC’s much-heralded — including by Walz — “Best States for Business” rankings, Minnesota has dropped from fifth in 2018 to 17th. Walz will tell national audiences he “fully funded” K-12 education, but more money does not translate to stronger achievement.

Instead of achievement, Walz focused on instituting radical social studies standards and ethnic studies requirements that infuse critical social justice ideology into K-12 education. He used a bait-and-switch to sell ethnic studies as “learning about other cultures,” while hiding the real purpose: to reshape our children’s identity around skin color and convince them that America is a “racialized hierarchy” defined by oppression and injustice. Walz also allowed protesters to tear down a statue of Christopher Columbus and changed Minnesota’s state flag because he wrongly believed it was racist.

In 2023, Walz squandered a $17.6 billion budget surplus and raised taxes on income, sales, gasoline, car tabs, deliveries, boats, marijuana and businesses. His new family leave program will be funded with a new tax on every employee and employer in the state. They are yet to launch the program but have already raised the tax rate. Under Walz’s leadership, Minnesota recently fell behind the country in GDP per capita for the first time in modern history.

Walz signed away Minnesota’s energy future by locking us into a renewable energy mandate that is driving up electricity costs in the pursuit of unmeasurable climate change goals. Running an energy grid with weather-based, intermittent energy sources, as called for in Walz’s 2023 renewable-energy mandate, is causing massive price increases and will ultimately lead to blackouts.

Minnesotans have been voting with their feet during the Walz governorship with new data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) showing a net loss of 13,455 individuals leaving Minnesota for other parts of the U.S. in 2021-22. The population loss is across the board — every age group tracked by the IRS shows a net loss of people.

Now that we think of it, promoting Tim Walz could be a really good idea. He couldn’t possibly do more harm to Minnesota in the relatively meaningless job of vice president.

John Phelan is senior economist and Bill Walsh is director of communications for the Center of the American Experiment.

The fledgling event of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign in Minnesota centered on reaching out to Asian American voters in St. Paul, hoping to build enthusiasm among voters who might be swayed by a candidate positioned to be the first Black woman and first South Asian woman nominee for president.

“I do think there are people who haven’t been engaged before, who are calling their friends and family members” — including those who see themselves reflected in Harris’s heritage, said Shivanthi Sathanandan, the battleground state director for South Asians for Harris and a vice chair of the Minnesota DFL.

As Harris quickly ascends as the replacement for President Joe Biden to take on former President Donald Trump in November, Democrats in Minnesota and nationwide are seeing an opportunity to revive the kind of grassroots enthusiasm many feared Biden could no longer inspire. It matters not only for the presidential race but up and down the ballot.

Republicans have been gearing up to contest Minnesota on Trump’s behalf this year, and the former president and his running mate, JD Vance, will rally supporters Saturday night in St. Cloud. Any edge in voter enthusiasm will be vital in the event of a close contest.

“Representation matters and people get excited about that,” Sathanandan said. She is hoping Harris capitalizes on that by championing immigrant communities and working people in her run.

Aside from the political considerations, supporters celebrated Harris’ identity as a South Asian woman at the event in St. Paul on Tuesday.

“We have an opportunity to elect the first auntie, the first Asian American president of this country,” said Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval, the first Asian American mayor of that city, who visited St. Paul to campaign for Harris.

Pureval urged a group of Asian American activists gathered on a University Avenue rooftop to believe in their political power.

“I am a Midwest Asian. I am proud to be a Midwest Asian,” he said. “We can run and win anywhere.”

The DFL said that Monday and Tuesday, the first two full days after Biden dropped out, delivered record fundraising days for the state party; some $200,000 came in since Harris announced her candidacy, the party said. More than 600 people signed up to volunteer since Harris got in, party officials said, also a record.

Communities of Black activists are also mobilizing, said Michael Minta, a University of Minnesota political science professor whose research includes race and politics. Minta noted his wife was on a fundraising call Sunday night with more than 40,000 other Black women.

“It really reminds me of 2008, of Barack Obama, where people wanted to volunteer and give money,” Minta said. “Democrats are hoping this will not only infuse money but get people active in the campaign.”

Turnout from voters of color will be key in Minnesota and across the Midwest, Minta said. Lower turnout for Hillary Clinton among non-white voters, compared to turnout for Obama, was part of the reason Trump came close to winning the state in 2016. And Minta said lower turnout, coupled with more stringent voter ID laws that blocked some from voting, is part of the reason Wisconsin broke for Trump that year.

On the flip side, Minta said, Harris also has the potential to motivate voters who do not want to see a woman of color become president.

“If it’s close like it is in 2016, you’re talking about thousands of votes” to decide the election, Minta said.

Even small blocs of votes can make a huge difference in down-ballot races, Minta noted, which will be key with control of the state House up for grabs. State senators as a whole are not on the ballot this year, but a one-seat DFL majority in the Senate depends on the race for a vacated seat in the western suburbs.

Minta said he would be watching to see if Harris can motivate suburban women who are passionate about abortion rights, something she has already signaled will be a centerpiece of her campaign.

Democratic activists were looking forward to more interest in the campaign.

“I don’t know that the strategy changes as much as the energy,” Sathanandan said. “The energy around the mobilization continues to grow.”