Vikings part with head athletic trainer Uriah Myrie

The Vikings athletic training staff will have a different look in 2024.

The team announced Friday it had parted with head athletic trainer Uriah Myrie, who came to the team in 2022 as part of a revamped training staff in Kevin O’Connell’s first season. Myrie replaced longtime head athletic trainer Eric Sugarman and was the No. 2 official in the team’s reconfigured player health and performance department under Tyler Williams.

Players praised the changes to the department in an NFL Players Association survey that ranked the Vikings the league’s most player-friendly team last year. But the department will change again before the 2024 season, with Williams expected to meet with the team’s football leadership to determine its structure.

“We appreciate Uriah’s commitment and contributions to the organization and to Vikings players over the past two years,” the team said in a statement announcing the move. “We wish him personal and professional success in the future.”

Myrie’s firing, according to a league source with knowledge of the situation, was not connected to the Vikings’ spate of injuries during the 2023 season. But after a 7-10 season during which a rash of injuries meant more players working with Myrie in the training room for longer stretches of the year, the Vikings decided to move on from him and have Williams rework the department.

Williams, the Rams’ former sports science director and assistant athletic trainer who joined O’Connell in Minnesota, could hire another athletic trainer to replace Myrie or take a more direct role in player care himself, with additional support staff brought in to help him.