Vikings inquire about recently released King, despite Quigley’s success

Marquette King was let go by Jon Gruden and the Oakland Raiders late last week and the Vikings have reportedly shown interest. 

Marquette King was recently released by the Oakland Raiders and is now reportedly drawing interest from other teams, including the Vikings. Ryan Quigley had a great season in 2017 and reports of the Minnesota Vikings inquiring about Marquette King are a little surprising considering Quigley’s success.

King is the rare NFL player who seems to actually enjoy his job and have fun while he is playing, which could very well be the reason Jon Gruden decided to go in a different direction. Gruden doesn’t seem like he is a big fan of people who don’t take football as seriously as he does.

To compare King and Quigley in 2017, Quigley had the better season in nearly every category, finishing with more than twice as many fair catches, more kicks inside the 20 and fewer touchbacks than King. Although King did average more yards per punt and have more total punting yards.

The Vikings should be commended for inquiring about the possibility of making the team better by again trying to upgrade at a given position. However, the punting situation seems to be working very well at the moment and perhaps the best thing the Vikings can do is leave well enough alone.

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Both King and Quigley should be effective in 2018 so it would seem that either way, the Vikings are going to have a decent punting game. The ability to pin teams in their own end and force long drives against the Vikings stout defense is part of why they wont so many games in 2017 and they should be able to replicate that formula in 2018.