Vikings Player Lands Top 5 Endorsement from Terrell Davis

  |  
Jul 7, 2021
Terrell Davis
Pro Football Hall of Fame running back, Terrell Davis walks the red carpet during the 103rd Indianapolis 500, Sunday, May 26, 2019. Indy 500 500festival Indycar Indy

Amid the last few weeks, Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks has been showered with Top-3-in-the-league linebacker kudos. Rankings are rampant during this downtime of the offseason, after mandatory minicamps but before training camp. It gives the digital stratosphere time to analyze players, position by position, establishing expectations and a pecking order for the upcoming season.

Pro Football Focus did it for linebackers a while back, and CBS Sports followed suit in June. Per both entities, Kendricks placed as the NFL’s third-best linebacker entering 2021, just behind Bobby Wagner and Fred Warner respectively.

Well, now another powerhouse voice agrees with the third-best designation for Minnesota’s linebacker – and that’s Terrell Davis, a Hall of Fame running back from the Denver Broncos. On NFL.com’s Total Access, Davis ranked the league’s top five linebackers in order:

  1. Bobby Wagner (Seattle Seahawks)
  2. Lavonte David (Tampa Bay Buccaneers)
  3. Eric Kendricks (Minnesota Vikings)
  4. Fred Warner (San Francisco 49ers)
  5. Darius Leonard (Indianapolis Colts)

Put briefly, Davis said on Kendricks’ on-the-field traits, “His pass coverage is really, really good. He’s been the focal point of that [Vikings] defense for the last couple years.”

Eric Kendricks

Image courtesy of Vikings.com

Davis also coined Kendricks “underrated” while assigning the ranking.

Kendricks missed five games in 2020, falling on the calendar at the worst time imaginable. He was injured right before a home game versus the Jacksonville Jaguars, spelling doom for an already-bad Vikings defense that merely limped by without the likes of Danielle Hunter, Anthony Barr, Michael Pierce, and Mike Hughes. And as far as Kendricks went – so went the Vikings. Mike Zimmer’s team piecemealed a mini-playoff push but absolutely folded when Kendricks was hurt right before a Week 13. All Minnesota needed to do was defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Chicago Bears for playoff entry. That didn’t happen as the tail-tucked Vikings disavowed themselves from postseason participation.

With his contract, Kendricks exists on the Vikings depth chart in an advantageous financial manner. He signed a five-year, $50 million deal in 2018 – a fair sum for the UCLA alumnus at the time. Since then, though, Kendricks emerged from a cocoon as one of the league’s top defenders.

Kendricks’ contract runs through 2023, setting up free agency in 2024. Per OverTheCap.com, he’s the 17th highest-paid inside linebacker in the NFL as of July 2021.

The 29-year-old is also one of the longest-tenured players on the Vikings roster – with only Harrison Smith (130), Adam Thielen (105), and Anthony Barr (87) playing more games than Kendricks. He’s been on the field for 85 Vikings games since 2015.

A tackling machine, Kendricks enjoys elite company for the sake of consistency:

 

And believe it or not, he was the best pass-coverage player on the Vikings in 2020 when adjudicated by passer-rating-against.

Kendricks’ running mate, Anthony Barr, will return to his side in September. Without core playmakers on the Vikings defense last year, Minnesota experienced its worst defensive season since 2013. The single aspect of defensive operations that was commendable was third-down acumen. Zimmer’s bunch ranked ninth-best in the NFL for defensive third-down percentage, a vast discrepancy from the fourth-most points-allowed metric that sullied 2020.

To consort with the upcoming return of Kendricks, Hunter, Barr, and Pierce, the Vikings added notable defensive personnel with Patrick Peterson, Dalvin Tomlinson, Sheldon Richardson, Bashaud Breeland, and Xavier Woods in free agency.