Categories: General News
| On 10 years ago

2014 Minnesota Vikings: A Different Sharrif Floyd Story—He Weighed 330 Pounds and Now Doesn’t

By Arif Hasan

Sharrif Floyd, 2013 first-round draft pick and presumed starter and under tackle for the Minnesota Vikings gave up eating meat in order to lose weight, and has hit his target weight of 305 pounds from the 330 he weighed at earlier in the offseason.

He decided to forego meat (but not fish) on March 7th, and lost 10 pounds within a week. A few weeks later, he lost an additional 15 pounds, checking in at a svelte 305.

Hopefully Floyd never weighed in at 330 during the season as that is far above the target weight for under tackles in nearly any defense, and can even be considered heavy for 4-3 nose tackles. Linval Joseph, the presumed starter at NT, is listed at 323 pounds. Pat Williams was listed at 317 pounds, though admitted upon retirement he played closer to 340 (though he always targeted 324).

In contrast, converted under tackle (from defensive end) Kevin Williams was listed at 311 pounds with the Vikings and Geno Atkins, the star under tackle for Mike Zimmer in Cincinnati, is listed at 303 pounds. Generally speaking, the under tackle has more pass rush responsibilities, and will sacrifice some weight (and strength) in order to gain speed and explosiveness.

Said Floyd to Pioneer Press reporter Chris Tomasson at the Vikings’ Play 60 event, “(Giving up meat was) really hard. I lived off pork. I thought pork made the world go around.

“That was just me (making the decision). Do I want to keep putting this stuff in my body or do I want to get right? So I decided to give up things that I love that are not really good for me right now. My body feels great. I’ve been telling people my body hasn’t felt this way since I first started playing football.’’

Giving up pork evidently doesn’t stop him from hunting boar, as Dan Zinski at the Viking Age points out.

Hopefully playing in the best shape of his football life will lead to on-field dividends, as he needs to bounce back from a mediocre rookie year. Floyd’s weight at the NFL Combine was 297 pounds, and he played between 295 and 305 at the University of Florida.

Arif Hasan

View Comments

  • Bad news that he let himself go and was overweight. Good news that he is losing. I hope that the staff sees that he is not only losing weight but gaining muscle and not losing muscle too.

  • I can't help seeing a nose tackle every time I look at this guy. Even his college production screamed run-stuffer to me. I'm just not confident he sports enough energy to pick up the torch from K-Will/Randle/Millard/Page.

  • That is an old IG pic lol. Great for him taking his health seriously. Eating clean ! Looks fantastic.
    SKOL VIKES4LIFE

  • Meh. Seems like a slow news cycle story. The further we get from Leslie Frazier, the more he reminds me a bit of Denny Green in that he had 'his' guys and would play those guys at the expense of other, deserving players. I think Sharrif has earned the benefit of the doubt in regards to his character (see this story: http://www.nfl.com/draft/story/0ap1000000152528/article/sharrif-floyd-tackles-his-difficult-past-with-eye-on-a-better-future). Ya, the Melton thing raises some questions, but re-reading the story of Sharrif's childhood and some scouting reports on him makes me think that he might really prosper under Zimmer. Whenever I hear Zimmer talk I can't help but get motivated about what the Vikings could do - I think it's just a gift Zimmer has to connect with players and get them to remember everything they love about the game and everything that they are passionate about working towards. Of course I'm just talking about of my ass here, but it sounds to me like Sharrif would really respond to a guy like that.

    Now I don't know if he's going to get a ton of sacks, but he might become a consistently disruptive interior presence for us. And being a run stuffer isn't bad either, as everything I read about Zimmer is that he wants his D-lineman to stop the run first, then rush the passer. And who knows why Floyd gained the weight. It's not like Kevin Williams was a light weight, if we're being honest here. And Floyd's injury may have set him back in terms of the conditioning he wanted to do. And then again, maybe he was just a young kid with money for the first time, living away from home, stuck behind a vet, and he put on some weight. I think putting on weight is pretty easy for a lot of these guys if they aren't intentional about what they eat. Just comes with the territory of being that big, you know?

    Final thought on Melton - didn't make sense to me, unless you consider that Zimmer is looking for as much talent as possible on the D-line, and thus was open to mixing in lots of different looks with it: 4-3, 3-4, hybrid type stuff. Throw different things at opposing QBs where they aren't sure if Robison or Griffen is a LB, or a DE, or Melton and Floyd DE's or UT's? Stuff like that. The idea remains - get the best players you can and mix and match to get them opportunities to win their match ups. AKA - less about Floyd falling out of favor in the Vikings' eyes and more about adding talent whenever and wherever you can.

    Having said that, this is a huge preseason for Floyd. If he's going to be good, it's going to show up now. And if not...

  • Zimmer like to rotate his DL and keep them fresh. They become more effective as the game goes on and the OL begins to tire. It makes sense trying to get the best DL available to rotate. I agree, this has very little about Floyd, and all about paralysis by analysis, and just nothing else to write about.

  • Is the draft here yet!? Geeez it seems like it is taking forever. I hope the NFL moves it back next year to it's normal days.