On Thursday afternoon, a pair of greats from recent Minnesota Vikings history both officially brought their careers to an end.
Fullback C.J. Ham and wide receiver Adam Thielen, both Minnesota natives, held a joint retirement press conference at the Vikings’ facilities. You can see the entire press conference here. . .by which I mean you can click on the box below and see it on YouTube, thanks to the NFL.
Ham finished the 2025 season with the Vikings and spent his entire ten-year NFL career with the purple, while Thielen spent his first nine seasons with the Vikings before spending two years with the Carolina Panthers. He returned to Minnesota as part of a trade to start the 2025 season before being released and finishing the year with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He signed a ceremonial one-day contract to retire with the Vikings today.
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Thielen, a native of Detroit Lakes, and Ham, who grew up in Duluth, both went to small colleges and worked their way up from tryout player status to the Vikings’ practice squad, eventually making themselves mainstays on the Vikings’ roster for much of their careers. We’ve told both of their stories on multiple occasions, so we won’t rehash them again in this space.
Congratulations to both C.J. Ham and Adam Thielen on making their NFL retirements official, and we wish them and their families the best in the next stages of their lives as they move on from the game of football.
