Vikings to pay out Khyree Jackson's signing bonus, honor him with helmet decals

The Vikings will leave Jackson's locker and his No. 31 untouched this season.

Khyree Jackson at offseason practice with the Minnesota Vikings. / Image courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings

Speaking at their pre-training camp press conference on Monday, Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and head coach Kevin O'Connell revealed some of the ways in which the organization will honor Khyree Jackson this season. "It leaves you heartbroken," O'Connell said of Jackson, who died at age 24 in a Maryland car crash on July 6.

The Vikings will be paying the remainder of the $827K signing bonus on Jackson's rookie contract to his estate. They'll also be covering a "significant" portion of the expenses for his funeral, which will take place this Friday. Adofo-Mensah, O'Connell, and other coaches and staffers will be traveling to attend the funeral. The Vikings also announced that they'll be holding a celebration of Jackson's life in Minnesota, with details to come at a later date.

Throughout this season, the Vikings will be wearing helmet decals bearing the initials KJ. Coaches will have the initials on lapel pins. Jackson's No. 31 will go unused this season, and his locker at TCO Performance Center will remain visible and untouched.

"Throughout the draft process and then his early time being a Minnesota Viking, you felt a guy that had such a laser focus on what his mission, his plan was," O'Connell said. "And it really showed up in the spring. He had a very good spring and was really looking to coming back to training camp and being well on his way on that path to having a big impact on our team for this year."

"Between his joy, the way he attacked life, and then that hard-working spirit was partly why we were so excited to add him to this building, to this culture," Adofo-Mensah said. "It's a tragedy that he's not here."

Dallas Turner put Khyree Jackson nameplate above his locker 🥹❤️ pic.twitter.com/KUBVk1OZJJ

— Alabama DieHards (@DiehardsAlabama) July 21, 2024

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