MINNEAPOLIS -- The Minnesota Vikings made several critical moves in their secondary on Monday.
The team announced that Terence Newman will return for his 16th season, hours after it exercised the fifth-year option on cornerback Trae Waynes, putting him under contract through 2019.
Newman, who became a free agent in March, said he wanted to come back for another shot at a championship after the Vikings' season ended in the NFC title game.
The move is an important depth addition for the league's No. 1 defense and backs Mike Zimmer's philosophy that a team can never have too many cornerbacks.
"A famous old coach called me this morning and said that one of the reasons he likes me is because he understands that you can never have too many cornerbacks," Zimmer said last week. "There's a commercial on TV right now where the lady asks this guy how many guns he needs, and he says just one more. That's how we feel about corners -- just one more. So as many times as we can find guys that can cover around here, the more we want."
Newman will turn 40 in September and will be the oldest defensive player in the NFL. He leads the league with the most career interceptions (42) among all active players. In 2017, the veteran corner totaled 25 tackles, one interception and five pass deflections.
Coming off his third season in Minnesota in which he played 555 snaps (third highest of all Vikings corners) as the team's lead nickel corner, Newman will be part of a secondary with newly drafted first-round cornerback Mike Hughes. His veteran presence is an important asset, as cornerbacks like Xavier Rhodes, Waynes and Mackensie Alexander have discussed the benefit of his guidance.
"I probably would not have been making the plays I've been making, and been playing the way I've been playing, if it wasn't for him," Alexander said in January. "He's been pushing me. He's obviously seen the talent, and all those kind of things that got me here, and he wanted me to be a better [player]. He always said I had all the ability in the world and it was really just my thought process and the mental part of the game that I needed to grow from."
Training camp will provide answers on what kind of role the veteran cornerback will play in 2018. Newman is a versatile weapon with extensive experience playing at cornerback and safety and could be used as more of a rotational defensive back based on needs. The depth provided by Minnesota's wealth of corners is something Zimmer said he is excited to incorporate more of in defensive sub packages after the team drafted Hughes last week.
"I've always kind of tinkered around with having one safety and four corners, things like that," Zimmer said. "It'll give us some flexibility in what we do in some of the nickel packages."