CJ Ham Is the Hero the Vikings Needed
The fullback's career might be ending, but he certainly went out with a bang. A Matt Fries Ode to Ham.
The Minnesota Vikings had CJ Ham mic’d up for the team’s Week 18 game against the Green Bay Packers. While he hasn’t officially announced it, the video makes it clear that Ham expects the game to be his last and that he will retire this offseason.
With Ham potentially riding off into the sunset, and Harrison Smith also looking like he will hang ‘em up, the Vikings might lose their two-longest tenured players in the same offseason.
Ham joined the Vikings in 2016 as an undrafted free agent out of Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD. A DII school, Augustana is small enough that you have to clarify it’s not Augustana College, the school in Illinois where former Bengals’ QB and NFL MVP Ken Anderson played. At Augustana, Ham was an RB and ran for over 1,000 yards and 16 TDs in his final season.
Born and raised in Duluth, MN, Ham’s local roots are likely the only reason he had an opportunity with the Vikings. Ham wasn’t notable enough to be signed by a team immediately after the draft, but he got invited to the team’s rookie minicamp.
His invite was so under-the-radar that sites like the Daily Norseman didn’t have it listed. In fact, it was hard to find Ham listed anywhere as a minicamp invite. I found this Argus Leader article that listed Ham among the local Sioux Falls minicamp invites. That website even wrote a profile on a local player invited to Vikings’ camp, but it was on University of Sioux Falls CB Solomon St. Pierre, not Ham.
Ham beat the odds to make the Vikings’ roster after minicamp, converted to FB, made the practice squad after camp, and spent 2016 as an understudy to Zach Line. He made the team proper the next season, and just kept grinding away as a dirty work player.
Lead blocking on offense and covering punts and kickoffs on special teams are not glamorous ways to live, but Ham made it work. He lasted through two GMs, two HCs, four different special teams coordinators, six different offensive play callers, and nine NFL seasons. Once he made the team, he missed just eight games in his career and just two until this past season.
Ham became a cult favorite among fans due to a combination of his Minnesota origin, food-related last name, and legitimately good play on the field.
I see Ham as having taken up the mantle of Jim Kleinsasser, another local product who played a dirty work role for the Vikings. A two-time Pro Bowler at FB and a four-time team captain, the league and his teammates recognized Ham’s excellence as a player and leader. Ham also does excellent work off the field, and the Vikings nominated him for the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award in 2025.
Vikings’ HC Kevin O’Connell made sure to get Ham involved in his probable final game. He got him a goal-line run for a rushing TD, and Ham made a great juggling catch to convert a third down late in the game. O’Connell said he had hoped to get Ham and Smith on the field for a kneeldown to end the game, but it wasn’t meant to be as the Packers held the ball until time expired. The team still put Ham up on the video board to get an ovation from the crowd during a timeout.
Fullbacks are used sparingly in the modern NFL. PFF lists just 14 players as fullbacks for the 2025 season, and most of them played small roles on their respective offenses; in total, fullbacks took 3,127 snaps in the regular season — 9.1 percent of available offensive snaps for all teams. For the 12 offenses that employed those 14 backs, it was still just 24.3 percent of available snaps.
Throughout Ham’s career, only about half of the NFL teams rostered a fullback. It speaks volumes that, upon arriving in Minnesota from a system that didn’t use an FB in Los Angeles, O’Connell modified his offense to incorporate Ham.
Ham’s usage rate on offense increased every season under O’Connell, from playing 15% of offensive snaps in 2022 to 28% in 2025. While it didn’t reach his peak under Stefanski and the two Kubiaks (he played 1,134 snaps, roughly 36% of the offensive total, from 2019-2021), Ham was a critical part of the Vikings offense this season.
To maintain relevance, however, Ham also needed to contribute on special teams. He was a core special teamer every season of his career, and it’s fitting that he likely finishes his career with an almost identical number of special teams (2,299) and offensive (2,308) snaps.
On offense, Ham totaled 84 receptions for 681 yards and two TDs, with 35 rushing attempts for 106 yards and eight TDs. He recorded 54 combined and 35 solo tackles during his special teams career, and he also blocked and recovered a punt in 2024 against the San Francisco 49ers.
Based on his play, Ham certainly doesn’t need to retire. You could argue that 2025 was his best season since that 2019-21 peak, and I very much think he has more in the tank. I respect his likely decision to move on – he should simply do what he wants to in that regard.
But rather than being a declining player at the end of his career, Ham was playing at a level near the peak for his position. I want to honor that in the best way I can, by putting out a highlight reel of Ham’s 2025 season, featuring all phases of the game.
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